UC-NRLF 


253 


Til 


WILLIAM 
ARCHER 


GIFT   OF 
Mrs.   F.    L.    Paxson 


. 


THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 


THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

A  BRIEF  APPRECIATION 


BY 

WILLIAM  ARCHER 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 
1919 


COPYRIGHT,  1919, 

BY 
HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


GIFT 


THE    QUINN    A    90DEN    CO.    PRE«8 


£"777 


NOTE 

For  the  early  career  of  President  Wilson,  the  chief 
authority  is  Mr.  William  B.  Hole's  "  Woodrow  Wilson: 
The  Story  of  His  Life  "  (1912).  Excellent  studies 
of  his  work  as  an  educator  and  a  statesman  will  be 
found  in  Mr.  Henry  J.  Ford's  "  Woodrow  Wilson: 
The  Man  and  His  Work"  (1916),  and  (from  the 
British  point  of  view)  in  Mr.  H.  Wilson  Harris's 
"  President  Wilson:  His  Problems  and  Policy  "  (1917). 
To  all  three  books  I  am  greatly  indebted. 

W.A. 


.  M611215 


INTRODUCTORY 

THE  United  States  of  America  have  passed 
through  two  great  crises  of  history — the  crisis 
which  gave  them  birth  as  an  independent  nation, 
and  the  crisis  which  decided  that  they  were  to 
remain  for  ever  one  and  indivisible,  and  that 
negro  slavery  was  no  longer  to  be  tolerated 
within  their  bounds.  Each  of  these  crises 
brought  to  the  front  a  man,  not  only  of  lofty 
spiritual  stature,  but  of  the  purest  order  of 
greatness.  George  Washington  was  not,  per 
haps,  what  is  accounted  a  man  of  genius.  His 
powers  were  solid  rather  than  dazzling.  A 
splenetic  Scotch  sophist  could,  without  manifest 
absurdity,  sneer  at  him  as  merely  "  a  good  land- 
surveyor."  But  he  had  what  the  crisis  de 
manded  more  than  brilliancy  of  genius:  he  had 
greatness  of  character.  Never  was  polity  more 
fortunate  than  the  United  States  in  its  founder 
and  patron  saint.  Abraham  Lincoln,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  a  man  of  genius  if  ever  there 
was  one;  yet  what  endears  his  name  to  his 

vii 


viii  INTRODUCTORY 

countrymen,  and  to  all  lovers  of  freedom 
throughout  the  world,  is  not  his  genius  but  his 
sheer  goodness.  The  rugged  frontiersman,  the 
Illinois  country  lawyer,  was  a  nobleman  in  the 
highest  sense  of  the  word.  The  people  of 
America  were  much  wiser  than  they  realized 
when  they  sent  that  long,  lean,  ungainly 
Westerner  to  the  White  House.  Yet  we  cannot 
but  believe  that  some  sort  of  happy  instinct 
guided  the  democracy  in  making  so  brilliant  a 
selection. 

In  August,  1914,  a  third  great  crisis  found,  as 
some  of  us  believe,  a  third  great  man  in  the 
presidential  chair  of  the  United  States.  The 
issue  in  this  crisis  was  an  entirely  new  one;  not 
whether  the  nation  should  be  independent,  not 
whether  it  should  be  indivisible,  but  whether  it 
should  attempt  to  hold  aloof  from  the  shaping 
of  the  world's  future,  in  fancied  inviolability,  or 
should  accept  the  share  in  that  momentous  task 
imposed  on  it  at  once  by  its  strength  and  by  its 
ideals.  There  was  much  that  was  specious,  and 
much  that  carried  the  weight  of  high  authority, 
to  be  said  in  favor  of  the  former  alternative. 
The  question  simply  was  whether  America 
should  realize  that  the  world  of  to-day  was  an 


INTRODUCTORY  ix 

entirely  different  world  from  that  in  which  the 
tradition  of  aloofness  was  established,  and  that 
her  national  ideals  of  peace  and  democracy  were 
as  formidably  menaced  by  events  in  Europe  as 
though  the  Atlantic  Ocean  had  been  no  broader 
than  the  Straits  of  Dover. 

The  President  in  office  when  that  crisis  burst 
upon  the  world  had  been  elected  on  wholly  dif 
ferent  issues.  But  once  more  fortune  had 
marvelously  favored  the  United  States.  He 
proved  to  be  a  man  in  whom  the  wisdom  of 
patience  was  no  less  conspicuous  than  the  wis 
dom  of  courage.  So  long  as  it  seemed  that 
American  ideals  might  be  safeguarded,  and  the 
future  of  the  world  secured,  without  the  active 
participation  of  his  country  in  the  vast  calamity 
of  war,  he  held  his  hand,  he  disregarded  the 
clamor  of  impatient  spirits  on  either  side  of  the 
ocean,  and  he  awaited  the  time  when  either  the 
skies  should  clear,  or  they  should  so  darken  that 
not  even  the  most  ostrich-like  optimism  could 
imagine  the  United  States  unthreatened  by  the 
tornado.  Meanwhile  the  American  people  had, 
in  a  hotly-contested  election,  reaffirmed  its  belief 
that  the  man  they  had  chosen  in  calmer  times, 
and  in  view  of  simpler  problems,  was  the  strong 


x  INTRODUCTORY 

man  whose  hand  was  required  on  the  helm  of 
the  ship  of  state. 

The  skies,  as  we  know,  did  not  clear — they 
grew  ever  more  lowering — and  as  soon  as  the 
moment  came  when  the  interests  of  the  nation 
and  of  the  world  manifestly  demanded  that 
counsels  of  patience  should  give  place  to  coun 
sels  of  resolution,  Woodrow  Wilson  spoke  un 
hesitatingly  the  decisive  word,  and  found  a 
united  people  behind  him.  Is  it  premature  to 
recognize  in  his  whole  course  of  action  an  ex 
ample  of  lofty  and  intrepid  statesmanship, 
justly  comparable  with  anything  recorded  of  his 
two  great  predecessors?  May  not  one  even  go 
further,  and  say  that  never  did  crisis  in  history 
find,  or  produce,  a  man  more  splendidly  ade 
quate  to  the  task  imposed  upon  him? 

For  the  past  two  years,  no  living  man  has 
held  a  more  conspicuous  or  a  more  responsible 
position  than  Mr.  Wilson.  All  the  world  has 
hung  upon  his  utterances;  and  to  all  lovers  of 
freedom  and  justice — to  all  whose  one  consola 
tion  in  calamity  has  been  the  hope  that  the 
world  would  profit  by  the  awful  lesson — his 
utterances  have  been  a  constant  source  of  in 
spiration  and  of  confidence.  His  idealism,  on 


INTRODUCTORY  xl 

the  one  hand,  has  never  faltered,  while  on  the 
other  hand  his  sane  sense  of  the  practical  needs 
of  the  situation  has  never  failed.  To  millions 
of  people  in  allied,  in  neutral,  and  even  in 
enemy  countries,  the  knowledge  that  this  strong, 
just  man  had  his  hand  on  the  levers  of  state 
craft  has  given  inexpressible  reassurance. 

Since  the  great  turn  of  fortune  in  July,  1918 — 
since  the  Landslide  of  Autocracy  set  in — Mr. 
Wilson's  position  has  been  unique  and  unpar- 
elleled.  In  virtue  of  the  mandate  of  a  great 
people:  in  virtue,  too,  of  his  own  character  and 
faculty:  he  has  at  more  than  one  juncture  been 
in  very  truth  the  arbiter  of  the  destinies  of 
the  world.  In  the  name  of  democracy,  he  has 
spoken  the  doom  of  empires.  To  this  man  of 
plain  Scotch-Irish  parentage,  this  son  of  an 
obscure  Presbyterian  minister,  Hapsburgs  and 
Hohenzollerns  have  come  truckling  for  mercy, 
only  to  be  told,  calmly  and  sternly,  that  man 
kind  has  no  longer  any  use  for  them.  The 
wonderful,  the  incredible  drama  is  a  theme  for 
an  ^Bschylus  or  a  Shakespeare.  We,  its  living 
spectators,  can  find  no  adequate  words  for  the 
emotion  it  excites  in  us. 

But  the  career  and  character  of  its  protago- 


xii  INTRODUCTORY 

nist  we  can  and  must  study.  Difficult  though 
it  be  to  see  a  contemporary  in  just  perspective, 
this  is  a  case  in  which  the  attempt  must  be  made. 
The  purpose  of  the  following  pages  is  to  give, 
in  the  briefest  compass,  a  sketch  of  the  career 
and  character  of  the  man  to  whom  we  owe  the 
inspiring  spectacle  of  a  great  nation  accepting, 
from  motives  of  pure  world-patriotism,  the 
gravest  responsibility  which  a  people  can  take 
upon  itself,  and  throwing  its  weight,  at  the 
decisive  instant,  into  the  most  momentous  war 
of  the  modern  world. 

The  earlier  and  less  widely-known  stages  of 
the  President's  career  have  been  more  fully 
treated  than  the  later,  which  are  matters  of 
recent  history.  Wherever  it  has  seemed  possi 
ble,  Mr.  Wilson  has  been  left  to  tell  his  own 
story,  through  extracts  from  his  writings  and 
speeches. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAQB 

I.  YOUTH  AND  EARLY  MANHOOD  ...          1 

II.  THE  MAN  OF  LETTERS       .        .        .        •.'        9 

III.  PRINCETON           .        .        .        .                .28 

IV.  NEW  JERSEY        .        .                 ...        39 

V.  THE  WHITE  HOUSE   .        ...        .       49 

VI.    MEXICO 73 

VII.  INTO  THE  WAR  .        .        ...        .82 

VIII.  PEACE  AND  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS     .      109 

APPENDIX     .        .  115 


THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 


YOUTH  AND  EARLY  MANHOOD 

THOMAS  WOODROW  WILSON — the  "  Thomas  " 
seems  soon  to  have  been  dropped  by  general  con 
sent — was  born  at  Staunton,  Virginia,  on  De 
cember  28,  1856.  His  paternal  grandfather, 
James  Wilson,  emigrated  from  Ulster  in  1807, 
and  married,  in  Philadelphia,  Anne  Adams,  an 
Ulster  girl  who  had  been  among  his  fellow- 
passengers.  He  went  westward,  about  1812,  to 
Steubenville,  Ohio,  and  there  a  son,  Joseph 
Ruggles — the  youngest  of  seven — was  born  to 
him  in  1822.  All  the  seven  sons  learned  their 
father's  trade,  and  became  printers;  but  the 
transition  from  printing  to  journalism  was  easy, 
and  James  Wilson  founded  two  papers,  the 
Western  Herald  in  Steubenville,  and  the  Penn- 


2  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

sylvania  Advocate  in  Pittsburg,  both  of  which 
remained  in  his  possession  till  his  death  in  1857. 
His  youngest  son  soon  dropped  the  family  trade 
in  order  to  enter  the  Presbyterian  ministry. 
Though  licensed  as  a  preacher,  he  at  first  de 
voted  himself  mainly  to  teaching,  and  in  1846 
obtained  a  post  in  the  Male  Academy  at  his 
birthplace,  Steubenville.  There  he  met  Miss 
Janet  Woodrow,  daughter  of  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Thomas  Woodrow,  a  Scotch  Presbyterian  min 
ister,  who  had  crossed  the  Border  to  Carlisle, 
where  his  family  of  eight  were  all  born.  From 
Cumberland  they  removed  to  Canada,  and 
thence  to  Ohio.  His  daughter  Janet  was  a 
pupil  at  the  Steubenville  Academy  for  Girls 
when  she  made  the  acquaintance  of  Joseph 
Wilson.  They  were  married  on  June  7,  1849. 
The  future  President  was  their  third  child,  but 
eldest  son.  Another  son  was  born  ten  years 
later. 

Joseph  Wilson  seems  to  have  been  a  man 
of  varied  attainments,  for  we  find  him  acting  at 
one  time  as  "  professor  extraordinary "  of 
rhetoric  at  one  Southern  college;  shortly  after 
wards  as  professor  of  chemistry  and  natural 
science  at  another;  and  later  as  professor  of 


YOUTH  AND  EARLY  MANHOOD  3 

pastoral  and  evangelistic  theology  at  a  third. 
He  also  took  pastoral  charge  of  various 
churches.  From  1858  to  1870  he  was  pastor  of 
the  First  Presbyterian  Church  of  Augusta, 
Georgia;  and  it  was  in  this  town  of  some  15,000 
people  that  the  young  Woodrow  spent  his  child 
hood  and  early  boyhood.  The  great  Civil  War 
never  came  very  near  to  the  quiet  household. 
It  no  doubt  caused  both  perturbations  and 
privations,  but  does  not  seem  to  have  left  any 
deep  impression  on  the  boy's  mind.  His  ear 
liest  memory,  however,  is  of  "  two  men  meeting 
in  the  street  outside  his  father's  house,  and  one 
of  them  declaring  '  Lincoln  is  elected,  and 
there'll  be  war.' " 

The  chief  effect  of  the  war  upon  Woodrow's 
personal  fortunes  was  to  retard  the  beginning 
of  his  education.  It  is  scarcely  credible  that,  in 
a  literate  household,  a  highly  intelligent  boy 
passed  the  age  of  nine  before  he  was  even  able 
to  read;  but  it  is  certain  that  until  he  was  four 
teen  the  only  school  he  attended  was  one  opened 
in  Augusta  by  one  J.  T.  Derry,  a  Confederate 
veteran  whose  qualifications  do  not  seem  to 
have  been  of  the  highest.  Meanwhile  his  taste 
for  literature  was  fostered  by  the  domestic  habit 


4  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

of  reading  aloud,  which  introduced  him  to  the 
works  of  Scott  and  Dickens,  among  other 
authors. 

In  1870  the  family  removed  to  Columbia, 
South  Carolina,  where  Woodrow  went  to  the 
local  academy.  Three  years  later  he  entered 
Davidson  College,  North  Carolina,  but  after  a 
year's  attendance  his  health  temporarily  broke 
down.  His  family  had  now  removed  to  Wil 
mington,  North  Carolina,  and  there  he  spent  a 
year  of  comparative  rest,  at  the  same  time  pre 
paring  himself  for  entrance  to  Princeton  Uni 
versity,  where  he  matriculated  in  September, 
1875.  Up  to  this  point,  that  is  to  say,  until 
his  nineteenth  year,  his  whole  life  had  been 
spent  in  the  Southern  States. 

His  academic  record  at  Princeton  was  credita 
ble  but  not  brilliant.  We  are  told  that  "  his 
general  average  for  the  four  years  was  90.3," 
which  may  strike  the  uninitiated  as  rather  good ; 
but  it  is  added  that  "  he  stood  thirty-eighth  in 
a  graduating  class  of  106."  His  literary  ability, 
however,  did  not  fail  to  make  its  mark,  and  he 
was  for  a  year  sole  editor  of  the  college  maga 
zine,  the  Princetonian.  He  was  reckoned 
among  the  best  speakers  in  the  Whig  Hall  de- 


YOUTH  AND  EARLY  MANHOOD  5 

bating  club.  On  one  occasion  he  was  chosen 
to  represent  Whig  Hall  in  a  debate  with  an 
other  society,  on  a  subject  to  be  picked  at 
random  from  among  a  number  thrown  into  a 
hat.  The  subject  drawn  was  "  Tariffs,"  and  it 
should  have  been  Wilson's  part  to  plead  the 
cause  of  Protection  against  Free  Trade.  But 
he  would  not,  even  as  an  academic  exercise, 
argue  against  his  convictions.  He  retired  from 
the  debate,  and  the  champion  chosen  in  his 
place  was  defeated.  This  incident  shows  a 
remarkable  earnestness  in  so  young  a  man. 
Paradox — a  deliberately  insincere  display  of  in 
tellectual  adroitness — has  usually  irresistible  at 
tractions  for  the  clever  undergraduate. 

Before  he  left  college,  Wilson  contributed  to 
the  International  Review  a  remarkable  article 
on  "  Cabinet  Government  in  the  United  States," 
which  "  contains  in  embryo  much  of  his  subse 
quent  thinking  and  writing  upon  Government." 
Already  he  is  concerned  about  the  lack  of  an 
efficient  connecting-link,  in  the  American  con 
stitution,  between  the  legislative  and  the  execu 
tive,  and  urges  that  such  a  link  would  be  sup 
plied  by  a  responsible  Cabinet.  The  following 
passage  was  repeated  almost  word  for  word  in 


6  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

many    of    his    campaign    speeches    during    the 
Presidential  Election  of  1912 : 

Congress  is  a  deliberative  body  in  which  there  is  little 
real  deliberation ;  a  legislature  which  legislates  with  no 
real  discussion  of  its  business.  Our  Government  is 
practically  carried  on  by  irresponsible  committees. 
Too  few  Americans  take  the  trouble  to  inform  them 
selves  as  to  the  methods  of  Congressional  management; 
and  as  a  consequence,  not  many  have  perceived  that 
almost  absolute  power  has  fallen  into  the  hands  of  men 
whose  irresponsibility  prevents  the  regulation  of  their 
conduct  by  the  people  from  whom  they  derive  their 
authority. 

Already  the  future  President  was  deeply  in 
terested  in  English  political  thought.  He  had 
read  Chatham,  Burke,  Brougham,  Macaulay 
and  especially  Bagehot,  for  whom  his  admira 
tion  was  unbounded.  Moreover,  through  the 
running  commentary  in  the  Gentleman's  Maga 
zine,  he  had  familiarized  himself  with  the  par 
liamentary  history  of  the  sixties  and  seventies, 
when  Gladstone  and  Disraeli  were  at  the  height 
of  their  fame.  Already  the  bent  of  his  mind 
was  consciously  and  definitely  political.  The 
vital  things  of  literature  interested  him  pro 
foundly,  but  for  antiquarianism  he  had  neither 


YOUTH  AND  EARLY  MANHOOD  7 

taste  nor  time.  He  refused  to  compete  for  a 
prize  of  $125  which  it  was  thought  he  might 
easily  have  won,  because  he  found  that  it  would 
have  involved  a  close  study  of  the  works  of  Ben 
Jonson. 

After  taking  his  degree  of  A.B.  in  1879, 
Wilson  studied  law  for  a  year  at  the  University 
of  Virginia,  Charlottesville.  Here  we  find  him 
delivering  an  oration  on  John  Bright,  and  con 
tributing  to  the  college  magazine  an  article  on 
Gladstone.  His  health  again  becoming  unsatis 
factory,  he  spent  a  year  at  home,  before  entering 
upon  the  profession  he  had  chosen,  and  estab 
lishing  himself  as  a  lawyer  at  Atlanta,  Georgia. 
Fortunately,  as  we  are  now  apt  to  think,  he 
waited  for  clients  in  vain;  and  in  1883  he  left 
Atlanta  to  enter  upon  a  post-graduate  course 
at  Johns  Hopkins  University,  Baltimore.  Here 
he  obtained  a  fellowship  in  history,  and,  by 
means  of  a  thesis  on  "  Congressional  Govern 
ment,"  the  degree  of  Ph.D.  In  1885  he  joined 
the  teaching  staff  of  Bryn  Mawr,  a  famous 
college  for  women,  then  newly  established  in  the 
outskirts  of  Philadelphia,  where  he  lectured  on 
history  and  political  economy.  From  1888  to 
1890  he  held  the  Professorship  of  History  in  the 


8  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

Wesleyan  University,  Middletown,  Connecticut. 
In  1890  he  returned  to  Princeton  as  Professor 
of  Jurisprudence  and  Politics,  and  at  Princeton 
he  remained  for  twenty  years.  He  had  married 
in  1885  Miss  Ellen  Louise  Axon,  of  Savannah, 
Georgia.  This  lady — whom  he  had  thanked  in 
more  than  one  dedication  for  "  gentle  benefits 
which  can  neither  be  measured  nor  repaid  " 
died  in  August,  1914,  just  as  the  storm  of  war 
burst  upon  the  world.  In  December,  1915,  Mr. 
Wilson  married  Mrs.  Norman  Gait,  formerly 
Miss  Edith  Boiling,  of  Wythesville,  Virginia. 


II 

THE  MAN  OF  LETTERS 

THE  years  of  his  professorship  at  Princeton — 
before  he  entered  upon  the  organizing  and  ad 
ministrative  duties  of  a  University  President- 
were  the  chief  years  of  Woodrow  Wilson's 
literary  activity.  How  significant,  and  how  full 
of  promise,  that  activity  was,  we  have  scarcely 
realized  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

His  authorship  falls  into  three  branches:  he 
is  a  writer  upon  political  science,  he  is  an  his 
torian,  and  he  is  an  essayist.  In  all  three 
branches  his  work  is  full  of  character  and  vital 
ity.  He  brings  to  it  a  vigorous  and  compre 
hensive  mind,  fine  literary  culture,  high  ideals, 
and  a  broad,  sympathetic  humanity.  He  shows 
himself  from  the  first  an  accomplished  writer, 
trained  in  the  only  good  school — that  is  to  say, 
a  loving  study  of  the  best  models  in  the  lan 
guage.  Those  of  us  who  made  our  first  ac- 

9 


10  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

quaintance  with  his  style  in  reading  diplomatic 
"  notes "  presumed  to  proceed  from  his  pen, 
may  have  thought  it  somewhat  cumbrous  and 
conventional.  No  epithets  could  be  less  applica 
ble  to  his  unofficial  and  unfettered  literary  work. 
The  inference  is  either  that,  in  his  diplomatic 
documents,  some  other  hand  actually  held  the 
pen,  or  that  he  was  trammeled  by  the  sense 
that  in  such  communications  anything  like  indi 
viduality  or  lightness  of  touch  would  be  out  of 
place. 

His  first  book  was  the  Johns  Hopkins  Uni 
versity  thesis,  "  Congressional  Government :  A 
Study  in  American  Politics,"  *  published  when 
he  was  twenty-eight.  Seldom  has  so  unromantic 
a  theme  inspired  so  readable  a  book.  One  learns 
from  it  not  only  the  forms  of  the  machinery 
which  has  grown  up  for  expressing  in  practice 
the  theories  of  the  American  Constitution,  but 
also,  by  way  of  contrast,  a  good  deal  about  the 
workings  of  the  British  parliamentary  system. 
For  Mr.  Wilson  is  above  everything  a  student 
of  comparative  politics,  and  never  loses  sight  of 
the  intimate  relationship  between  American  and 

*  Called  in  the  English  edition  (Constable,  1914),  "A  Study  of 
the  American  Constitution." 


THE  MAN  OF  LETTERS  11 

British  institutions.     Of  the  actual  style  of  the 
book,  a  few  brief  specimens  must  suffice: 

Hamilton  and  Jefferson  did  not  draw  apart  because 
the  one  had  been  an  ardent  and  the  other  only  a  luke 
warm  friend  of  the  Constitution,  so  much  as  because 
they  were  so  different  in  natural  bent  and  temper  that 
they  would  have  been  like  to  disagree  and  come  to  drawn 
points  wherever  or  however  brought  into  contact.  The 
one  had  inherited  warm  blood  and  a  bold  sagacity, 
while  in  the  other  a  negative  philosophy  ran  suitably 
through  cool  veins.  They  had  not  been  meant  for  yoke 
fellows. 

How  excellent  an  expression  is  that  which  I 
have  italicized!  There  is  a  touch  of  Stevenson 
about  it. 

The  House  sits,  not  for  a  serious  discussion,  but  to 
sanction  the  conclusions  of  its  Committees  as  rapidly 
as  possible.  It  legislates  in  its  committee-rooms ;  not 
by  the  determinations  of  majorities,  but  by  the  resolu 
tions  of  especially-commissioned  minorities;  so  that  it 
is  not  far  from  the  truth  to  say  that  Congress  in  session 
is  Congress  on  public  exhibition,  while  Congress  in  its 
committee-rooms  is  Congress  at  work. 

I  know  not  how  better  to  describe  our  form  of 
government  in  a  single  phrase  than  by  calling  it  a 
government  by  chairmen  of  the  Standing  Committees 
of  Congress.  This  disintegrate  ministry,  as  it  figures 


12  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

on  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  has  many 
peculiarities. 

One  must  take  this  passage  in  its  full  context 
in  order  quite  to  appreciate  the  admirable  felicity 
of  "  disintegrate  ministry." 

Some  of  the  Committees  are  made  up  of  strong  men, 
the  majority  of  them  of  weak  men;  and  the  weak  are 
as  influential  as  the  strong.  The  country  can  get  the 
counsel  and  guidance  of  its  ablest  representatives  only 
upon  one  or  two  subjects;  upon  the  rest  it  must  be 
content  with  the  impotent  service  of  the  feeble.  Only 
a  very  small  part  of  its  important  business  can  be  done 
well;  the  system  provides  for  having  the  rest  of  it  done, 
miserably,  and  the  whole  of  it  taken  together  done  at 
haphazard. 

Indirect  taxes  offend  scarcely  anybody.  .  .  . 
They  are  very  sly,  and  have  at  command  a  thousand 
successful  disguises.  .  .  .  Very  few  of  us  taste  the 
tariff  in  our  sugar;  and  I  suppose  that  even  very 
thoughtful  topers  do  not  perceive  the  license-tax  in 
their  whisky.  There  is  little  wonder  that  financiers 
have  always  been  nervous  in  dealing  with  direct  but 
confident  and  free  of  hand  in  the  laying  of  indirect 
taxes. 

Executive  and  legislature  are  separated  by  a  hard 
and  fast  line,  which  sets  them  apart  in  what  was  meant 
to  be  independence,  but  has  come  to  amount  to  isolation. 


THE  MAN  OF  LETTERS  13 

It  is  natural  that  orators  should  be  the  leaders  of  a 
self-governing  people.  Men  may  be  clever  and  engaging 
speakers  .  .  .  without  being  equipped  even  tolerably 
for  any  of  the  high  duties  of  the  statesman;  but  men 
can  scarcely  be  orators  without  that  force  of  character, 
that  readiness  of  resource,  that  clearness  of  vision, 
that  grasp  of  intellect,  that  courage  of  conviction,  that 
earnestness  of  purpose,  and  that  instinct  and  capacity 
for  leadership,  which  are  the  eight  horses  that  draw 
the  triumphal  chariot  of  every  leader  and  ruler  of  free 
men. 

Our  English  cousins  have  worked  out  for  themselves 
a  wonderfully  perfect  scheme  of  government  by  prac 
tically  making  their  monarchy  unmonarchical.  They 
have  made  of  it  a  republic  steadied  by  a  reverenced 
aristocracy,  and  pivoted  upon  a  stable  throne.  .  .  . 
I  think  that  a  philosophical  analysis  of  any  successful 
and  beneficent  system  of  self-government  will  disclose 
the  fact  that  its  only  effectual  checks  consist  in  a  mix 
ture  of  elements,  in  a  combination  of  seemingly  contra 
dictory  political  principles;  that  the  British  govern 
ment  is  perfect  in  proportion  as  it  is  unmonarchical, 
and  ours  safe  in  proportion  as  it  is  undemocratic. 

"  Congressional  Government  "  was  an  essay  in 
criticism  rather  than  a  work  of  systematic  exposi 
tion.  Mr.  Wilson  followed  it  up  four  years  later 
(1889)  with  a  much  solider,  though  scarcely 
more  valuable,  contribution  to  political  science. 


14  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

This  was  entitled  "The  State:  Elements  of  His 
torical  and  Practical  Politics,"  and  was,  in  fact, 
a  text-book  which  had  grown  up  out  of  the 
material  collected  for  his  Princeton  lectures.  It 
was  a  pioneer  work,  so  far,  at  any  rate,  as  the 
English  language  is  concerned.  "  In  preparing 
it,"  said  Mr.  Wilson  in  his  preface,  "  I  labored 
under  the  disadvantage  of  having  no  model.  So 
far  as  I  was  able  to  ascertain,  no  text-book  of 
like  scope  and  purpose  had  hitherto  been  at 
tempted."  Its  all-embracing  "  scope  "  may  be 
gathered  from  its  table  of  contents: 

I.  The  Earliest  Forms  of  Government. 

II.  The  Governments  of  Greece. 

III.  The  Government  of  Rome. 

IV.  Roman  Dominion  and  Roman  Law. 

V.  Teutonic   Polity   and   Government   during   the 

Middle  Ages. 

VI.  The  Government  of  France. 

VII.  The  Governments  of  Germany. 

VIII.  The  Governments  of  Switzerland. 

IX.  The     Dual     Monarchies:     Austria-Hungary; 

Sweden,  Norway. 

X.  The  Government  of  Great  Britain. 

XI.  The  Government  of  the  United  States. 

XII.  Summary:    Constitutional    and    Administrative 

Developments. 


THE  MAN  OF  LETTERS  15 

XIII.  The  Nature  and  Forms  of  Government. 

XIV.  Law:  its  Nature  and  Development. 

XV.  The  Functions  of  Government. 

XVI.  The  Objects  of  Government. 

In  view  of  this  multiplicity  of  topics,  it  is 
scarcely  surprising  to  find  that  the  book  runs  to 
1,536  paragraphs,  and  (in  the  English  Edition) 
to  639  pages.  In  introducing  the  English  edition 
of  1899,  Mr.  Oscar  Browning  wrote: 

Scholars  well  qualified  to  judge  are  of  opinion  that 
in  coming  years  the  interest  now  taken  in  Economics 
will  be  shared  with  Political  Science.  Whenever  that 
Science  is  regarded  not  only  as  indispensable  to  an  his 
torian,  but  as  the  very  backbone  to  Historical  Study, 
Mr.  Wilson  will  be  considered  as  the  foremost,  if  not 
the  first,  of  those  who  rendered  possible  an  intelligent 
study  of  a  department  of  Sociology,  upon  which  the 
happiness  and  good  government  of  the  human  race 
essentially  depend. 

How  little  did  Mr.  Browning  think,  as  he 
wrote  these  words,  that  the  man  whose  theoretical 
work  he  thus  appreciated,  would  be  the  executive 
leader  of  his  hundred-million  countrymen  in  a 
crisis  in  which  the  "  happiness  and  good  govern 
ment  of  the  human  race  "  were  indeed  the  issue 


16  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

at  stake,  and  would  lead  them  warily,  judiciously, 
and  yet  resolutely,  in  the  paths  of  far-seeing  and 
disinterested  world-citizenship. 

Mr.  Wilson's  chief  work  as  a  historian  is  his 
"History  of  the  American  People."  It  first 
appeared,  in  part  at  any  rate,  as  a  series  of  arti 
cles  in  Harper's  Magazine,,  entitled  "  Colonies 
and  Nation."  In  its  final  form — five  large  vol 
umes,  profusely  and  excellently  illustrated — it 
does  for  the  United  States  what  the  illustrated 
edition  of  Green's  "  Short  History  "  does  for 
Britain.  Mr.  Wilson's  style  is  as  well  adapted 
for  narrative  as  for  exposition.  Despite  its  brev 
ity,  the  opening  paragraph  of  his  second  chapter, 
"  The  Swarming  of  the  English,"  is  sufficient  to 
show  that,  no  more  than  Macaulay,  Froude  or 
Green,  does  he  forget  that  history,  while  it  may 
or  may  not  be  a  branch  of  science,  is  assuredly  a 
branch  of  literature: 

It  was  the  end  of  the  month  of  April,  1607,  when 
three  small  vessels  entered  the  lonely  capes  of  the 
Chesapeake,  bringing  the  little  company  who  were  to 
make  the  first  permanent  English  settlement  in  Amer 
ica,  at  Jamestown,  in  Virginia.  Elizabeth  was  dead. 
The  masterful  Tudor  monarchs  had  passed  from  the 
stage  and  James,  the  pedant  king,  was  on  the  throne. 


THE  MAN  OF  LETTERS  17 

The  "  Age  of  the  Stuarts  "  had  come,  with  its  sinister 
policies  and  sure  tokens  of  revolution.  Men  then  living 
were  to  see  Charles  lie  dead  upon  the  scaffold  at  White 
hall.  After  that  would  come  Cromwell;  and  then  the 
second  Charles,  "  restored,"  would  go  his  giddy  way 
through  a  demoralizing  reign,  and  leave  his  sullen 
brother  to  face  another  revolution.  Is  was  to  be  an 
age  of  profound  constitutional  change,  deeply  signifi 
cant  for  all  the  English  world;  and  the  colonies  in 
America,  notwithstanding  their  separate  life  and  the 
breadth  of  the  sea,  were  to  feel  all  the  deep  stir  of  the 
fateful  business.  The  revolution  wrought  at  home 
might  in  crossing  to  them  suffer  a  certain  sea-change, 
but  it  would  not  lose  its  use  or  its  strong  flavor  of 
principle. 

In  1893  Mr.  Wilson  contributed  a  volume  on 
"  Division  and  Reunion  "  —that  is  to  say,  on  the 
Civil  War,  its  causes  and  consequences — to  a 
series  of  "  Epochs  of  American  History."  It  is  a 
school  or  college  manual,  highly  condensed  and 
yet  readable.  Mr.  Wilson's  literary  art,  however, 
is  nowhere  seen  to  greater  advantage  than  in  his 
popular  "  Life  of  Washington,"  a  truly  fascinat 
ing  book.  Its  narrative  style  is  full  of  charm, 
and,  while  the  personality  of  the  hero  stands  out 
in  due  relief,  the  figures  of  the  men  who  sur 
rounded  him  are  delineated  with  a  sure  and  vivid 


18  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

touch.  It  is,  perhaps,  part  of  the  secret  of  Mr. 
Wilson's  success  as  a  leader  of  men,  that  he  has 
something  of  the  dramatist's  interest  in  individual 
human  character.  The  book  deserves  to  rank  as 
a  classic  of  historical  biography,  and  ought  to  be 
much  better  known  than  it  is  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic. 

Apart  from  scattered  magazine  papers,  Mr. 
Wilson's  work  as  an  essayist  is  contained  in  two 
volumes:  "  An  Old  Master  "  (1893),  and  "  Mere 
Literature"  (1896).  The  former  has  unfor 
tunately  not  been  accessible  to  me ;  but  the  latter 
affords  ample  material  for  an  estimate  of  his 
qualities  as  a  writer  of  "  mere  literature."  And 
they  are  very  high  qualities.  A  prominent  char 
acteristic  of  his  manner — not  always  a  virtue, 
but  seldom  carried  to  such  excess  as  to  make  it  a 
vice — is  the  Emersonian  habit  of  conveying 
thought  by  means  of  what  may  be  called  a  run 
ning-fire  of  generalizations.  Here  is  a  passage 
chosen  literally  at  random — a  sors  Wilsoniana — 
from  an  essay  entitled:  "  The  Author  Himself  ": 

Culture  broadens  and  sweetens  literature,  but  native 
sentiment  and  unmarred  individuality  create  it.  Not 
all  mental  power  lies  in  the  processes  of  thinking. 


THE  MAN  OF  LETTERS  10 

There  is  power  also  in  passion,  in  personality,  in 
simple,  native,  uncritical  conviction,  in  unschooled  feel 
ing.  The  power  of  science,  of  system  is  executive,  not 
stimulative.  I  do  not  find  that  I  derive  inspiration,  but 
only  information,  from  the  learned  historians  and 
analysts  of  liberty ;  but  from  the  sonneteers,  the  poets, 
who  speak  its  spirit  and  its  exalted  purpose,  and  who, 
recking  nothing  of  the  historical  method,  obey  only  the 
high  method  of  their  own  hearts — what  may  a  man  not 
gain  of  courage  and  confidence  in  the  right  way  of 
politics  ? 

From  every  page  of  these  essays  there  breathes 
an  intense  love  of  literature  and  of  the  fine  things 
of  literature,  the  expressions  of  a  broad  and 
catholic  humanity.  Mr.  Wilson  has  a  great  con 
tempt  for  the  mere  pedant;  and  for  the  mere 
aesthete  he  has  very  small  sympathy.  His  mind 
is  steeped  in  the  best  traditions  of  his  own  lan 
guage.  He  speaks  of  Montaigne  and  of  Montes 
quieu  with  high  respect,  but  I  do  not  remember 
that,  in  his  literary  essays,  he  mentions  any  other 
French  authors.  Though  his  work  in  political 
science  shows  that  he  is  familiar  with  German, 
Lessing  is,  I  think,  the  only  German  classic  to 
whom  he  refers.  His  deep  literary  piety,  if  one 
may  so  phrase  it,  speaks  in  a  hundred  passages — 


20  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

notably  in  the  conclusion  of  the  essay  from  which 
"  Mere  Literature  "  takes  its  title. 

If  this  free  people  to  which  we  belong  is  to  keep  its 
fine  spirit,  its  perfect  temper  amidst  affairs,  its  high 
courage  in  the  face  of  difficulties,  its  wise  temperate- 
ness  and  wide-eyed  hope,  it  must  continue  to  drink  deep 
and  often  from  the  old  wells  of  English  undefiled,  quaff 
the  keen  tonic  of  its  best  ideals,  keep  its  blood  warm 
with  all  the  great  utterances  of  exalted  purpose  and 
pure  principle  of  which  its  matchless  literature  is  full. 
The  great  spirits  of  the  past  must  command  us  in  the 
tasks  of  the  future.  Mere  literature  will  keep  us  pure 
and  keep  us  strong.  Even  though  it  puzzle  or  alto 
gether  escape  scientific  method,  it  may  keep  our  horizon 
clear  for  us,  and  our  eyes  glad  to  look  bravely  forth 
upon  the  world. 

Listen,  again,  to  the  thought  inspired  in  him 
by  this  (and  another)  passage  from  Burke: 
"  We  cannot,  I  fear,  falsify  the  pedigree  of  this 
fierce  people  (the  American  colonists)  and  per 
suade  them  that  they  are  not  sprung  from  a 
nation  in  whose  veins  the  blood  of  freedom  circu 
lates.  The  language  in  which  they  would  hear 
you  tell  them  this  tale  would  detect  the  imposi 
tion  ;  your  speech  would  betray  you.  An  English 
man  is  the  unfittest  person  on  earth  to  argue 


THE  MAN  OF  LETTERS  21 

another  Englishman  into  slavery."    This  is  Mr. 
Wilson's  comment: 

Does  not  your  blood  stir  at  these  passages?  And  is 
it  not  because,  besides  loving  what  is  nobly  written,  you 
feel  that  every  word  strikes  toward  the  heart  of  things 
that  have  made  your  blood  what  it  has  proved  to  be  in 
the  history  of  our  race? 

It  does  not  seem  to  be  on  record  that  Mr. 
Wilson  ever  ventured  across  the  frontiers  of 
meter;  but,  if  he  is  not  a  poet,  it  is  certainly  not 
for  lack  of  imagination.  The  last  essay  in  "  Mere 
Literature,"  entitled  "  The  Course  of  American 
History,"  presents  a  nobly  imaginative  picture  of 
the  conquest  of  the  continent.  Selection  is  diffi 
cult,  because  of  the  fine  coherence  of  the  process 
of  thought  which  runs  through  the  paper;  but  the 
following  passages  may  convey  some  taste  of  its 
quality: 

The  passes  of  the  eastern  mountains  were  the  arteries 
of  the  nation's  life.  The  real  breath  of  our  growth  and 
manhood  came  into  our  nostrils  when  first,  like  Gov 
ernor  Spotswood  and  that  gallant  company  of  Vir 
ginian  gentlemen  that  rode  with  him  in  the  far  year, 
1716,  the  Knights  of  the  Order  of  the  Golden  Horse 
shoe,  our  pioneers  stood  upon  the  ridges  of  the  eastern 


22  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

hills  and  looked  down  upon  those  reaches  of  the  con 
tinent  where  lay  the  paths  of  the  westward  migration. 
There,  upon  the  courses  of  the  distant  rivers  that 
gleamed  before  them  in  the  sun,  down  the  further 
slopes  of  the  hills  beyond,  out  upon  the  broad  fields 
that  lay  upon  the  fertile  banks  of  the  "  Father  of 
Waters,"  up  the  long  tilt  of  the  continent  to  the  vast 
hills  that  looked  out  upon  the  Pacific — there  were  the 
regions  in  which,  joining  with  people  from  every  race 
and  clime  under  the  sun,  they  were  to  make  the  great 
compounded  nation  whose  liberty  and  mighty  works  of 
peace  were  to  cause  all  the  world  to  stand  at  gaze. 

How  finely  touched,  again,  is  this  picture  of 
the  breed  of  men  by  whom  the  conquest  was 
accomplished : 

A  roughened  race  embrowned  in  the  sun,  hardened  in 
manner  by  a  coarse  life  of  change  and  danger,  loving 
the  rude  woods  and  the  crack  of  the  rifle,  living  to  begin 
something  new  every  day,  striking  with  the  broad  and 
open  hand,  delicate  in  nothing  but  the  touch  on  the 
trigger,  leaving  cities  in  its  track  as  if  by  accident 
rather  than  by  design,  settling  again  to  the  steady 
ways  of  a  fixed  life  only  when  it  must:  such  was  the 
American  people  whose  achievement  it  was  to  be  to 
take  possession  of  their  continent  from  end  to  end  ere 
their  national  government  was  a  single  century  old. 

The  paper  ends  with  a  fine  tribute  to  Lincoln. 
No  one  has  spoken  more  worthily  than  Woodrow 


THE  MAN  OF  LETTERS  23 

Wilson  of  his  two  great  predecessors  in  the  presi 
dential  chair.  It  is  not  in  this  essay,  however,  but 
in  an  earlier  one,  that  he  says  of  Lincoln :  "  To 
the  Eastern  politicians  he  seemed  like  an  accident; 
but  to  history  he  must  seem  like  a  providence." 

Some  of  Mr.  Wilson's  most  characteristic  work 
is  to  be  found  in  his  occasional  papers  and 
addresses.  One  of  the  most  thoughtful  of  his 
essays  is  entitled:  "  When  a  Man  comes  to  Him 
self,"  or,  in  other  words,  realizes  his  predestinate 
place  and  function  in  the  world.  The  following  is 
Mr.  Wilson's  ingenious  variation  on  a  theme  as 
old  as  the  Forest  of  Arden:  "  All  the  world's  a 
stage": 

A  man  is  the  part  he  plays  among  his  fellows.  He 
is  not  isolated;  he  cannot  be.  ...  Some  play  with  a 
certain  natural  passion ;  an  unstudied  directness,  with 
out  grace,  without  modulation,  with  no  study  of  the 
masters,  or  consciousness  of  the  pervading  spirit  of  the 
plot ;  others  give  all  their  thought  to  their  costume  and 
think  only  of  the  audience ;  a  few  act  as  those  who  have 
mastered  the  secrets  of  a  serious  art,  with  deliberate 
subordination  of  themselves  to  the  great  end  and 
motive  of  the  play,  spending  themselves  like  good  serv 
ants,  indulging  no  wilfulness,  obtruding  no  eccentricity, 
lending  heart  and  tone  and  gesture  to  the  perfect  prog- 


24  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

ress  of  the  action.     These  have  "  found  themselves," 
and  have  all  the  ease  of  a  perfect  adjustment. 

An  essay  "  On  Being  Human  "  is  full  of  preg 
nant  passages.  "  It  is  certainly  human,"  says 
our  author,  "  to  mind  your  neighbor's  business 
as  well  as  your  own.  Gossips  are  only  sociolo 
gists  upon  a  mean  and  petty  scale."  And  again: 
"  Is  it  because  we  are  better  at  being  common 
scolds  than  at  being  wise  advisers  that  we  prefer 
little  reforms  to  big  ones? "  Many  good  things 
have  been  said  about  books  and  reading:  indeed, 
whole  anthologies  have  been  composed  of  them; 
but  none  of  the  anthologies  contains  anything 
better  than  this : 

You  devour  a  book  meant  to  be  read,  not  because 
you  would  fill  yourself  or  have  an  anxious  care  to  be 
nourished,  but  because  it  contains  such  stuff  as  it  makes, 
the  mind  hungry  to  look  upon.  Neither  do  you  read 
it  to  kill  time,  but  to  lengthen  time,  rather  adding  to 
it  its  natural  usury  by  living  the  more  abundantly  while 
it  lasts,  joining  another's  life  and  thought  to  your  own. 

Here,  again,  is  a  passage  which  touches  the 
very  root  of  the  evils  from  which  the  world  of  to 
day  is  suffering: 


THE  MAN  OF  LETTERS  25 

We  do  not  want  our  poetry  from  grammarians,  nor 
our  tales  from  philologists,  nor  our  history  from  theo 
rists.  .  .  .  Neither  do  we  want  our  political  economy 
from  tradesmen  nor  our  statesmanship  from  mere  poli 
ticians,  but  from  those  who  see  more  and  care  for  more 
than  these  men  see  or  care  for. 

If  in  this  passage  Mr.  Wilson  hints  at  the  type 
of  statesman  which  the  world,  to  its  sorrow,  has 
so  plentifully  bred  in  these  latter  days,  he  also 
gives  us,  in  the  following  character  of  "  the  truly 
human  man,"  an  outline  of  the  qualities  in  which 
healing  may  be  found : 

This  is  our  conception  of  the  truly  human  man;  a 
man  in  whom  there  is  a  just  balance  of  faculties,  a 
catholic  sympathy — no  brawler,  no  fanatic,  no  phari- 
see;  not  too  credulous  in  hope,  not  too  desperate  in 
purpose;  warm,  but  not  hasty;  ardent,  and  full  of 
definite  power,  but  not  running  about  to  be  pleased  and 
deceived  by  every  new  thing. 

To  some  people  this  may  seem  a  prosaic  and 
pedestrian  ideal  of  character.  There  are  men 
and  women  (they  have,  no  doubt,  their  uses  in 
the  world)  in  whose  eyes  not  to  be  a  fanatic  is 
to  be  a  philistine,  and  who  despise  nothing  so 
much  as  the  Horatian  conception  of  the  yustum 


26  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

ac  tenacem  propositi  virum.  But  the  driving 
power  of  the  world  does  not  come  from  fanati 
cism,  even  if  its  inspiration  be  good.  It  may  have 
the  momentary  value  of  a  stimulant,  helpful  in  a 
great  crisis,  even  if  its  help  has  to  be  paid  for  by 
subsequent  reaction.  But  it  is  calm  and  resolute 
reason  that  does  the  lasting  things,  while  impa 
tient  idealism  exhausts  itself  in  untimely  strivings 
and  vain  denunciations.  To  borrow  an  illustra 
tion  from  President  Wilson  himself,  it  was  not 
the  passionate  abolitionism  of  William  Lloyd 
Garrison  that  abolished  slavery — it  was  the  im 
perturbable  wisdom  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

I  have  not,  in  this  short  study,  attempted  any 
critical  estimate  of  President  Wilson's  place  in 
American  literature.  My  object  has  been  simply 
to  show  that,  whatever  else  he  may  be,  he  is  a  man 
of  letters  to  the  finger-tips — a  man  steeped  in 
literary  traditions,  and  possessed  of  fine  literary 
gifts.  He  can  make  political  science  readable  to 
the  layman  (no  small  achievement,  by  the  way), 
and  he  can  make  history  fascinating  without 
imparting  to  it  the  cheap  over-coloring  of  fiction 
or  the  hectic  fervor  of  partisanship.  This  aspect 
of  his  genius  is  not  sufficiently  recognized  either 
here  or  in  his  own  country.  His  administrative 


THE  MAN  OF  LETTERS  27 

achievements,  both  in  education  and  politics,  and 
his  fame  as  a  statesman,  have  eclipsed  his  repute 
as  an  author.  But  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  if 
he  had  not  abandoned  the  contemplative  for  the 
active  life,  he  would  have  taken  a  high  place 
among  contemporary  writers  of  the  English  lan 
guage;  and,  even  as  it  is,  it  ought  not  to  be  for 
gotten  that  this  great  President  is  at  the  same 
time  an  accomplished  and  attractive  man  of 
letters. 


Ill 

PRINCETON 

IT  was  as  President  of  Princeton  that  Mr. 
Wilson  was  first  enabled  to  give  proof  of  that 
force  of  character  and  executive  ability  which, 
ten  years  later,  made  him  President  of  the  United 
States.  An  American  University  offers  far  more 
opportunity  than  an  English  University,  com 
posed  of  separate  and  practically  autonomous 
colleges,  for  an  individual  will  to  impress  itself 
upon  the  educational  and  social  policy  of  the 
whole  institution.  His  twelve  years  of  work  as 
a  professor  had  enabled  Mr.  Wilson  to  form  very 
decided  views  as  to  the  defects  of  the  existing 
system.  He  approached  his  new  task  in  the  spirit 
of  a  genial  but  resolute  reformer,  both  on  the 
educational  and  on  the  social  side.  The  educa 
tional  part  of  his  programme  he  carried  out  with 
brilliant  success ;  on  the  social  side  he  encountered 
difficulties  which  he  very  nearly  overcame,  but 
which  ultimately  proved  insuperable. 


PRINCETON  29 

There  had  for  some  time  been  a  tendency  in 
American  Universities  to  allow  their  undergrad 
uates  undue  latitude  in  the  choice  of  their  subjects 
of  study.  They  were  too  readily  permitted  to 
follow  the  line  of  least  resistance,  and  either  to 
obey  the  dictates  of  immature  taste  (more  rightly 
to  be  termed  fancy),  or  to  specialize  too  soon  on 
"  bread-studies,"  as  distinct  from  the  less  obvi 
ously  remunerative  branches  of  study  which  are 
essential  to  mental  discipline  and  general  culture. 
To  this  abuse  of  the  "  elective  "  system  Mr.  Wil 
son  offered  a  determined  opposition,  which  pro 
duced  excellent  results  at  Princeton,  and  has  had 
great  influence  in  other  universities.  He  insisted 
on  the  necessity  of  a  certain  amount  of  "  drill  " 
as  the  basis  of  all  sound  education.  In  an  address 
to  Princeton  alumni,  delivered  in  New  York 
soon  after  he  entered  upon  office,  he  said: 

There  are  different  sorts  of  subjects  in  a  curriculum, 
let  me  remind  you;  there  are  drill  subjects,  which  I 
suppose  are  mild  forms  of  torture,  but  to  which  every 
man  must  submit.  So  far  as  my  own  experience  is 
concerned,  the  natural  carnal  man  never  desires  to 
learn  mathematics.  .  .  .  There  are  some  drill  sub 
jects  which  are  just  as  necessary  as  measles  in  order 
to  make  a  man  a  grown-up  person ;  he  must  have  gone 


30  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

through  those  things  in  order  to  qualify  himself  for 
the  experiences  of  life;  he  must  have  crucified  his  will. 
.  .  .  That  I  believe  is  necessary  for  the  salvation  of 
his  soul. 

But  while  in  this  passage  he  laid  down  a  sound 
principle  as  to  the  function  of  education  in  gen 
eral,  it  was  in  his  Inaugural  Address  at  Prince 
ton  (October  25th,  1902)  that  he  propounded  his 
ideal  of  university  education  in  particular : 

There  are  two  ways  of  preparing  a  young  man  for 
his  life-work.  One  is  to  give  him  the  skill  and  special 
knowledge  which  will  make  a  good  tool,  an  excellent 
bread-wining  tool  of  him ;  and  for  thousands  of  young 
men  that  way  must  be  followed.  It  is  a  good  way. 
It  is  honorable.  It  is  indispensable.  But  it  is  not  for 
the  college,  and  it  never  can  be  for  the  college.  The 
college  should  seek  to  make  the  men  whom  it  receives 
something  more  than  excellent  servants  of  a  trade  or 
skilled  practitioners  of  a  profession.  It  should  give 
them  elasticity  of  faculty  and  breadth  of  vision,  so  that 
they  shall  have  a  surplus  of  mind  to  expend,  not  upon 
their  profession  only,  for  its  liberalization  and  enlarge 
ment,  but  also  upon  the  broader  interests  which  lie 
about  them,  in  the  spheres  in  which  they  are  to  be,  not 
bread-winners  merely,  but  citizens  as  well,  and  in  their 
own  hearts,  where  they  are  to  grow  to  the  stature  of 
real  nobility.  It  is  this  free  capital  of  mind  the  world 


PRINCETON  31 

most  stands  in  need  of — this  free  capital  that  awaits 
investment  in  undertakings,  spiritual  as  well  as  material, 
which  advance  the  race  and  help  all  men  to  a  better  life. 

i 

"  Free  capital  of  mind !  "  Could  there  be  a 
better  definition  of  the  ideal  product  of  university 
training?  It  was  with  this  ideal  in  view  that  the 
new  President  set  about  his  re-organization  of  the 
Princeton  curriculum.  He  made  it  impossible 
for  a  young  man,  before  his  aptitudes  had  been 
put  to  any  real  test,  before  even  his  tastes  had 
got  beyond  the  stage  of  mere  boyish  whim,  to 
choose  a  "  soft  job  "  and  make  that  his  chief,  or 
his  only,  academic  interest.  The  system  he  intro 
duced  is  known  as  that  of  "  group  electives." 
During  the  student's  first  two  years,  his  choice  is 
limited  to  certain  strictly-prescribed  groups  of 
studies,  while  in  the  remainder  of  the  four  years' 
course  a  certain  latitude  of  selection  is  allowed, 
so  as  to  leave  ample  room  for  the  development  of 
individuality.  The  change  had  a  markedly  invig 
orating  effect  upon  the  whole  atmosphere  of  the 
University. 

Before  his  advent,  moreover,  it  had  been  too 
much  the  practice  to  convey  information  by  mere 
formal  lectures,  which  the  student  might  or  might 


32  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

not  attend,  and  from  which,  even  if  present  in  the 
body,  he  might  very  easily  be  absent  in  the  spirit. 
The  industrious  student  took  voluminous  notes, 
the  idle  student  tried,  when  examinations  time 
approached,  to  borrow  the  notes  of  his  industri 
ous  comrade.  It  is  the  experience  of  many 
students,  where  the  lecture  system  prevails,  that 
the  time  spent  in  the  class-room  is  largely  wasted, 
and  that  there  is  much  more  profit  in  reading  the 
professor's  authorities  than  in  listening  to  the 
professor.  Mr.  Wilson  so  modified  this  rather 
somnolent  system  as  to  bring  the  mind  of  the 
teacher  and  the  pupil  into  more  active  and  stimu 
lating  contact.  Even  so  early  as  1894,  he  had 
shown,  in  an  article  contributed  to  the  Forum, 
that  this  reform  was  in  his  mind.  He  then  wrote : 

The  serious  practical  question  is:  How  are  all  the 
men  of  a  University  to  be  made  to  read  English  litera 
ture  widely  and  intelligently?  For  it  is  reading,  not 
set  lectures,  that  will  prepare  a  soil  for  culture:  the 
inside  of  books,  and  not  talk  about  them :  though  there 
must  be  the  latter  also  to  serve  as  a  chart  and  guide 
to  the  reading.  The  difficulty  is  not  in  reality  very 
great.  A  considerable  number  of  young  tutors,  serv 
ing  their  novitiate  for  full  university  appointments, 
might  easily  enough  effect  an  organization  of  the  men 
that  would  secure  reading.  Taking  them  in  groups  of 


PRINCETON  33 

manageable  numbers,  suggesting  the  reading  of  each 
group,  and  by  frequent  interviews  and  quizzes  [oral 
examinations]  seeing  that  it  was  actually  done  .  .  •  * 
they  could  not  only  get  the  required  tasks  performed, 
but  relieve  them  of  the  hateful  appearance  of  being 
tasks,  and  cheer  and  enrich  the  whole  life  of  the 
University. 

This  passage  contained  the  germ  of  the  "  pre 
ceptorial  system  "  which  Mr.  Wilson  succeeded  in 
establishing.  It  combined  some  of  the  features 
of  the  English  tutorial  system  and  of  the  German 
Seminar.  The  result  was  a  very  marked  raising 
of  the  intellectual  standard  of  the  university. 
The  mere  drone  was  practically  eliminated,  and 
real  keenness  of  interest  in  things  of  the  mind  was 
most  effectually  promoted. 

It  can  scarcely  be  doubted,  too, — though  in 
this  field  results  are  less  easily  measured — that 
Mr.  Wilson's  influence  did  something  to  check 
the  tendency  of  American  education  (under 
German  influence)  to  concentrate  attention  on 
the  mere  mint  and  cummin  of  scholarship,  to  the 
exclusion  of  its  spirit  and  essence.  The  first  essay 
in  his  book  "  Mere  Literature  "  is  for  the  most 
part  a  protest  against  this  tendency.  The  ironic 
humor  of  the  following  passage  cannot  disguise 


34  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

the  fact  that  the  author  is  very  much  in  earnest. 
If  you  are  to  promote  the  study  of  great  litera 
ture,  he  says,  you  must  have  a  heart  to  feel  with 
the  great  writers,  "  an  eye  to  see  what  they  see, 
an  imagination  to  keep  them  company,  a  pulse 
to  experience  their  delights." 

But  if  you  have  none  of  these  things,  you  may  make 
shift  to  do  without  them.  You  may  count  the  words 
they  use,  instead,  note  the  changes  of  phrase  they  make 
in  successive  revisions,  put  their  rhythm  into  a  scale  of 
feet,  run  their  allusions — particularly  their  female  al 
lusions — to  cover,  detect  them  in  their  previous  reading. 
Or,  if  none  of  these  things  please  you,  or  you  find  the 
big  authors  difficult  or  dull,  you  may  drag  to  light  all 
the  minor  writers  of  their  time,  who  are  easy  to  under 
stand.  By  setting  an  example  in  such  methods,  you 
render  great  services  in  certain  directions.  You  make 
the  higher  degrees  of  our  Universities  available  for  the 
large  number  of  respectable  men  who  can  count,  and 
measure,  and  search  diligently ;  and  that  may  prove  no 
small  matter.  You  divert  attention  from  thought, 
which  is  not  always  easy  to  get  at,  and  fix  attention 
upon  language,  as  upon  a  curious  mechanism,  which  can 
be  perceived  with  the  bodily  eye,  and  which  is  worthy 
to  be  studied  for  its  own  sake,  quite  apart  from  any 
thing  it  may  mean.  You  encourage  the  examination  of 
forms,  grammatical  and  metrical,  which  can  be  quite 
accurately  determined  and  quite  exhaustively  cata- 


PRINCETON  35 

logued.  You  bring  all  the  visible  phenomena  of  writ 
ing  to  light  and  into  ordered  system.  You  go  further, 
and  show  how  to  make  careful  literal  identification  of 
stories  somewhere  told,  ill  and  without  art,  with  the 
same  stories  told  over  again  by  the  masters,  well  and 
with  the  transfiguring  effect  of  genius.  You  thus 
broaden  the  area  of  science;  for  you  rescue  the  con 
crete  phenomena  of  the  expression  of  thought — the 
necessary  syllabification  which  accompanies  it,  the  in 
evitable  juxtaposition  of  words,  the  constant  use  of 
particles,  the  habitual  display  of  roots,  the  inveterate 
repetition  of  names,  the  recurrent  employment  of  mean 
ings  heard  or  read — from  their  confusion  with  the 
otherwise  unclassifiable  manifestations  of  what  had 
hitherto  been  accepted,  without  critical  examination, 
under  the  lump  term  "  literature,"  simply  for  the  pleas 
ure  and  spiritual  edification  to  be  got  from  it. 

The  writer  of  these  delightful  pages  would 
assuredly  lend  no  countenance  to  the  dry-as-dust 
conception  of  scholarship  which  seeks  to  choke 
out  its  human  and  spiritual  essence. 

Having  successfully  introduced  a  new  spirit 
into  the  educational  side  of  the  institution  con 
fided  to  his  charge,  Mr.  Wilson,  at  the  end  of  his 
fifth  year  of  office,  felt  that  the  time  had  come 
to  attempt  the  social  changes  demanded  by  his 
truly  democratic  ideals.  His  predecessor  in  the 


36  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

office  of  President  had  declared  it  impossible  that 
Princeton  should  be  other  than  a  college  for  rich 
men's  sons,  and  it  had  been  described  as  "  the 
most  charming  Country  Club  in  America."  Its 
peculiar  feature  among  American  universities 
was  the  club-houses  which  formed  the  centers  of 
social  intercourse  for  the  senior  students.  Twelve 
of  these  luxurious  and  exclusive  establishments 
stood  in  their  spacious  grounds  close  to  the  Uni 
versity  buildings.  Only  third  and  fourth  year 
students  could  belong  to  them;  but  to  secure 
entrance  became  the  burning  ambition  of  "  fresh 
men  "  and  "  sophomores  "  —an  ambition  far  more 
potent  than  the  desire  for  distinction  in  scholar 
ship,  or  even  in  games.  The  system  involved  a 
great  deal  of  harmful  wear-and-tear  of  mental 
tissue,  and  led  to  bitter  heart-burnings  and  crush 
ing  disappointments.  Moreover,  it  established 
a  sort  of  plutocratic  standard  in  the  life  of  the 
University — a  form  of  snobbery  which  ought  to 
have  been  repulsive  to  sound  American  sentiment, 
and  was  highly  repulsive  to  Mr.  Wilson.  He  felt 
that  the  way  to  break  it  down  was  not  to  attack 
the  clubs  directly,  but  to  establish  a  new  order  of 
residential  halls  or  hostels,  in  which  "  men  should 
be  so  distributed  that  rich  and  poor,  elder  and 


PRINCETON  37 

younger,  would  be  thrown  together."  Such  hos 
tels  for  freshmen  and  sophomores  had  already 
been  successfully  introduced  in  connection  with 
the  "  preceptorial  "  system ;  and  Mr.  Wilson  now 
proposed  to  extend  to  senior  men  the  benefits, 
as  he  conceived  them,  of  this  form  of  collegiate 
life.  His  proposal  was  accepted  by  the  Trustees 
of  the  University,  only  one  dissenting;  but  when 
it  was  made  public  it  met  with  a  storm  of  opposi 
tion.  American  universities  are  largely  depend 
ent  for  funds  upon  the  liberality  of  their  ex- 
students  or  "  alumni " ;  the  affections  of  the 
alumni  of  Princeton  were  rooted  in  the  Club 
system;  and  it  was  found  that  an  attack  upon  it 
would  so  gravely  impair  the  financial  prospects  of 
the  institution  that  the  Trustees  were  forced  to 
withdraw  their  consent  to  the  President's  scheme. 
In  another,  somewhat  similar,  episode,  the 
power  of  the  purse  succeeded  in  baffling  Mr. 
Wilson's  idealism.  The  University  lacked  ac 
commodation  for  post-graduate  courses,  and  a 
lady  bequeathed  to  it  a  sum  of  a  quarter  of  a 
million  dollars  (£50,000)  for  the  establishment 
of  a  Graduate  School.  A  "  Dean  "  was  appoint^ 
for  the  as  yet  unborn  institution,  and  proceeded 
to  draw  up  proposals  for  "  an  ornate  and  luxu- 


38  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

rious  school,  severed  both  in  situation  and  in 
mental  atmosphere  from  the  rest  of  Princeton," 
which  Mr.  Wilson  strongly  disapproved.  While 
the  matter  was  in  suspense,  another  bequest,  this 
time  of  half  a  million  dollars,  was  made  to  the 
Graduate  School.  It  was  saddled,  however,  with 
two  conditions — first,  that  another  half-million 
dollars  should  be  raised  from  other  sources,  and 
second  that  the  scheme  of  the  aristocratically- 
minded  Dean  should  be  accepted.  Mr.  Wilson 
was  immovable  in  his  principles,  and  succeeded  in 
working  up  the  Trustees  to  such  a  point  of 
heroism  that  (though  the  supplementary  half- 
million  was  already  promised)  they  had  fully 
determined  to  renounce  the  whole  million  rather 
than  sanction  what  they  felt  to  be,  educationally 
and  socially,  a  false  move.  This  would  have  been 
a  great  triumph  to  set  off  against  the  defeat  in 
the  Battle  of  the  Clubs.  But  alas!  at  the  decisive 
moment,  a  third  bequest  was  announced,  this 
time  of  three  million  dollars,  on  condition  that 
the  disputed  scheme  should  be  carried  into  effect. 
Such  an  argument  was  more  than  human  nature 
could  resist,  and  the  Trustees  pocketed  at  once 
their  principles — or,  rather,  Mr.  Wilson's — and 
the  £600,000. 


IV 

NEW  JERSEY 

THE  first  book  which  Woodrow  Wilson  pub 
lished  was,  as  we  have  seen,  "  Congressional 
Government :  A  Study  of  the  American  Consti 
tution."  It  reached  its  twenty-fourth  edition  in 
1912.  "  In  American  literature,"  says  Mr.  Ford, 
"  it  occupies  a  place  like  that  of  Bagehot's  treat 
ise  in  English  literature."  The  various  professor 
ships  and  lectureships  he  had  held  were  all  con 
cerned  with  subjects  germane  to  the  public  life 
of  the  nation.  He  had  lectured  on  history,  polit 
ical  science,  political  economy,  jurisprudence  and 
constitutional  law;  and  in  dealing  with  all  these 
subjects  he  had  shown  penetrating  insight,  a  rare 
grasp  of  mind,  and  a  high,  yet  thoroughly  prac 
tical,  idealism.  He  was,  moreover,  a  highly- 
trained  and  effective  public  speaker;  and  his 
Presidency  of  Princeton  had  shown  him  to  pos 
sess  the  gifts  of  an  efficient  administrator  and  a 


40  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

born  leader  of  men.  Such  a  combination  of  quali 
ties  clearly  designated  him  to  play  a  conspicuous 
part  on  the  political  stage;  but,  though  he  had 
delivered  many  occasional  addresses  on  political 
subjects,  he  had  not,  until  1910,  gone  down  into 
the  arena  and  taken  part  in  any  political 
campaign. 

His  courageous  and  enterprising  policy  as 
head  of  one  of  the  three  leading  Universities  of 
the  seaboard  states  had  made  for  him  a  national 
reputation;  but  it  was  inevitable  that  he  should 
be  best  known  in  the  state  in  which  the  university 
is  situated,  only  some  ten  miles  from  the  state 
capital,  Trenton.  In  the  summer  of  1910,  the 
Democrats  of  that  state,  looking  about  for  a  can 
didate  whose  character  and  record  would  assure 
their  success  in  the  approaching  election  for  the 
Governorship,  fixed  their  choice  on  the  President 
of  Princeton.  He  had  taken  no  step  whatever  to 
secure  nomination;  but  when  he  was  called  upon 
to  declare  whether  he  would  accept  it  if  offered, 
he  returned  this  straightforward  answer: 

I  need  not  say  that  I  am  in  no  sense  a  candidate  for 
the  nomination,  and  that  I  would  not,  under  any  cir 
cumstances,  do  anything  to  obtain  it.  My  present 


NEW  JERSEY  41 

duties  and  responsibilities  are  such  as  would  satisfy  any 
man  desirous  of  rendering  public  service.  They  cer 
tainly  satisfy  me,  and  I  do  not  wish  to  draw  away 
from  them. 

But  my  wish  does  not  constitute  my  duty,  and,  if  it 
should  turn  out  to  be  true,  as  so  many  well-informed 
persons  have  assured  me  they  believe  it  will,  that  it  is 
the  wish  and  hope  of  a  decided  majority  of  the  thought 
ful  Democrats  of  the  state,  that  I  should  consent  to 
accept  the  party's  nomination  for  the  great  office  of 
Governor,  I  should  deem  it  my  duty,  as  well  as  an  honor 
and  a  privilege,  to  do  so. 


His  strength  as  a  candidate  was  shown  by  the 
fact  that,  when  the  Democratic  State  Convention 
met  in  September,  he  was  nominated  on  the  first 
ballot;  and  he  carried  the  election,  in  November, 
not,  indeed,  by  a  majority  of  the  whole  votes,  but 
by  a  "  plurality  "  of  nearly  50,000  over  the  can 
didate  who  stood  next  to  him. 

The  wire-pullers  of  the  Democratic  party  in 
New  Jersey  had  accepted  Mr.  Wilson  as  a 
"  strong  "  candidate — that  is  to  say,  one  likely 
to  appeal  to  the  individual  voter — but  also,  per 
haps,  in  the  hope  that,  being  new  to  the  activities 
of  political  life,  he  would  prove  a  weak  and  easily- 
managed  Governor.  Of  this  illusion,  if  they  in- 


42  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

deed  cherished  it,  they  were  quickly  disabused. 
The  democratic  "  boss "  was  a  gentleman  of 
whose  record  Mr.  Wilson  had  no  high  opinion, 
and,  in  agreeing  to  stand  for  the  Governorship, 
he  had  stipulated  that  this  politician  should  not 
figure  on  the  same  "  ticket  "  as  candidate  for  the 
position  of  United  States  Senator  from  New 
Jersey.  The  nomination  for  that  position  had 
accordingly  fallen  to  a  Mr.  Martine.  The  elec 
tion,  however,  had  given  the  Democrats  a  major 
ity  of  twenty-one  in  the  two  houses  of  the  state 
legislature,  by  whom  the  United  States  senators 
are  elected;  and  seeing  this,  the  "boss,"  Mr. 
Smith,  determined  to  offer  himself  as  candidate 
for  the  senatorship,  nothing  doubting  that  his 
obedient  henchmen  would  ignore  the  popular 
election  and  give  him  their  votes.  This  was  not 
only  an  autocratic  overriding  of  party  discipline, 
but  a  breach  of  an  honorable  understanding. 
Had  Mr.  Wilson  permitted  it  to  pass,  he  would 
practically  have  joined  the  ranks  of  the  boss's 
henchmen.  He  did  not  permit  it  to  pass.  He 
gave  Mr.  Smith  forty-eight  hours  to  withdraw 
his  candidature,  with  the  intimation  that  if  this 
were  not  done,  he  would  publicly  denounce  him. 
The  boss  ignored  the  ultimatum,  and  the  Gov- 


NEW  JERSEY  43 

ernor  executed  his  threat.  He  did  not  go  to  the 
party  wire-pullers,  he  went  direct  to  the  people, 
and  at  a  series  of  public  meetings,  exposed  the 
iniquity  of  the  manoeuver  with  such  effect  that, 
when  the  legislature  met,  Mr.  Martine  was  duly 
sent  to  Washington,  and  the  boss,  his  power 
broken,  was  left  out  in  the  cold. 

The  Governor  of  an  American  state  stands  to 
the  legislature  in  very  much  the  relation  of  the 
President  to  Congress.  Even  in  his  first  book  on 
the  American  Constitution,  Mr.  Wilson  had  de 
plored  the  complete  separation  between  the 
executive  and  the  legislative  function  on  which 
the  Constitution  insists.  It  was  his  frequently- 
repeated  opinion  that  "  the  separation  of  the 
right  to  plan  from  the  duty  to  execute  has  always 
led  to  blundering  and  inefficiency."  He  had  also 
freely  criticized  the  system  whereby  almost  all 
bills  are  referred  to  departmental  committees  of 
the  various  legislatures,  often  to  be  heard  of  no 
more.  Practically  the  whole  legislative  function 
is  thus  delegated  to  these  committees,-  who  sit  in 
private  and  of  whose  proceedings  no  record  is 
available.  When  they  report  a  bill  to  the  House, 
discussion  of  it  is  reduced  to  a  minimum,  and  the 
merits  of  a  measure  are  seldom  or  never  publicly 


44  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

thrashed  out.*  There  is,  however,  one  constitu 
tional  provision  which  enables  a  Governor  (or  a 
President)  of  energetic  character  and  strong 
convictions  to  exercise  a  very  real  influence  on 
legislation.  He  is  empowered,  and  indeed  in 
structed,  to  give  information  to  the  "  legislative 
body  as  to  the  state  of  the  commonwealth,  and  to 
recommend  to  their  consideration  such  measures 
as  he  shall  judge  necessary  and  expedient."  It  is 
thus  evidently  within  the  rights  of  the  head  of 
the  Executive  to  urge,  though  not  to  impose,  his 
views  upon  the  legislature ;  and  Mr.  Wilson  was 
both  by  theory  and  by  temperament  inclined  to 
make  the  fullest  use  of  this  prerogative. 

From  the  moment  of  his  entry  upon  office,  he 
made  it  clear  that  the  legislature  of  New  Jersey 
had  no  King  Log  to  deal  with.  He  had  an 
nounced  a  programme  of  sweeping  reform,  and 
he  applied  himself  vigorously  to  securing  its  exe 
cution.  His  first  great  measure  was  an  attack 
upon  the  system  which  left  nominations  for  polit 
ical  office  (or  in  other  words,  the  composition  of 
the  party  "  ticket  ")  in  the  hands  of  bosses  work- 

*  Readers  who  wish  to  obtain  an  insight  into  the  workings  of 
American  state  politics  (which  are  practically  national  politics  in 
miniature)  may  be  referred  to  Mr.  Winston  Churchill's  excellent 
novels,  "Coniston"  and  "Mr.  Crewe's  Career." 


NEW  JERSEY  45 

ing  through  carefully  packed  and  manipulated 
delegations.  A  bill  introducing,  or  rather  reviv4 
ing,  the  system  of  "  direct  Primaries  " — that  is, 
the  nomination  of  party  candidates  by  direct 
popular  vote — was  carried  in  spite  of  the  most 
formidable  opposition,  entirely  in  virtue  of  the 
energy  and  resolution  with  which  the  Governor 
threw  himself  into  the  breach  in  its  defense. 
Other  measures  of  no  less  importance  followed: 
an  Employers'  Liability  Act;  a  Corrupt  Prac 
tices  Act  of  a  drastic  nature ;  and  an  act  establish 
ing  a  Public  Utilities  Commission  for  the  control 
of  all  companies  enjoying  exceptional  privileges 
(or  "  franchises  ")  in  view  of  services  to  be  ren 
dered  to  the  community.  The  importance  of  this 
measure  is  apparent  when  we  consider  that  in 
America  almost  all  public  services  in  connection 
with  transit,  lighting,  water  supply,  telephones, 
etc.,  are  in  the  hands  of  private  companies,  whose 
natural  tendency  is  to  take  wide  views  of  their 
privileges  and  narrow  views  of  their  duties.  Their 
constant  efforts  to  influence  the  legislature  were 
a  source  of  much  "  scheming,  lobbying,  intrigu 
ing  "  —and  corruption.  The  Commission — a 
small  body  to  which  responsibility  can  easily  be 
brought  home — relieves  the  legislature  of  a  func- 


46  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

tion  which  it  is  ill  fitted  to  perform,  controls,  in 
the  interests  of  the  public,  the  operations  and  the 
charges  of  the  companies,  and  at  the  same  time, 
in  the  interests  of  the  shareholders,  keeps  an  eye 
on  their  finances. 

Mr.  Wilson  proved,  in  short,  during  his  brief 
term  as  Governor,  that  he  was  no  mere  theorist 
in  politics,  but  an  eminently  practical  man,  with 
a  remarkable  gift  for  getting  things  done.  Dur 
ing  the  Presidential  campaign  of  1912,  he  him 
self  gave  an  account  of  his  stewardship  in  New 
Jersey,  which  may  be  summarized  as  follows : 

I  had  no  merit  as  a  candidate  for  Governor,  except 
that  I  said  what  I  really  thought,  and  the  compliment 
that  the  people  paid  me  was  in  believing  that  I  meant 
what  I  said.  Unless  they  had  believed  in  the  Governor 
whom  they  then  elected,  unless  they  had  trusted  him 
deeply  and  altogether,  he  could  have  done  absolutely 
nothing.  .  .  .  The  things  that  have  happened  in  New 
Jersey  since  1910  have  happened  because  the  seed  was 
planted  in  the  fine  fertile  soil  of  confidence,  of  trust, 
of  renewed  hope. 

The  moment  the  forces  in  New  Jersey  that  had 
resisted  reform  realized  that  the  people  were  backing 
new  men  who  meant  what  they  said,  they  realized  that 
they  dared  not  resist  them.  It  was  not  the  personal 
force  of  the  new  officials ;  but  it  was  the  moral  strength 


NEW  JERSEY  47 

of  their  backing  that  accomplished  the  extraordinary 
result. 

And  what  was  accomplished?  Mere  justice  to  classes 
that  had  not  been  treated  justly  before.  Every  school 
boy  in  the  state  of  New  Jersey,  if  he  cared  to  look  into 
the  matter,  could  comprehend  the  fact  that  the  laws 
applying  to  laboring  men,  with  respect  to  compensation 
when  they  were  hurt  in  their  various  employments,  had 
originated  at  a  time  when  society  was  organized  very 
differently  from  the  way  in  which  it  is  organized  now, 
and  that  because  the  law  had  not  been  changed,  the 
courts  were  obliged  to  go  blindly  on  administering  laws 
which  were  cruelly  unsuitable  to  existing  conditions. 
.  .  .  Nobody  seriously  debated  the  circumstances ; 
everybody  knew  that  the  law  was  antiquated  and  im 
possible;  everybody  knew  that  justice  waited  to  be 
done.  Very  well,  then,  why  wasn't  it  done? 

There  was  another  thing  that  we  wanted  to  do:  we 
wanted  to  regulate  our  public  service  corporations  so 
that  we  could  get  the  proper  service  from  them,  and  on 
reasonable  terms.  That  had  been  done  elsewhere,  and 
where  it  had  been  done,  it  had  proved  just  as  much  for 
the  benefit  of  the  corporations  themselves  as  for  the 
benefit  of  the  people.  We  were  not  trying  to  do  any 
thing  novel  in  New  Jersey;  we  were  simply  trying  to 
adopt  there  a  tested  measure  of  public  justice.  We 
adopted  it.  Has  anybody  gone  bankrupt  since?  Does 
anybody  now  doubt  that  it  was  just  as  much  for  the 
benefit  of  the  public  service  corporations  as  for  the 
people  of  the  state? 


48  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

Then  there  was  another  thing  that  we  modestly  de 
sired.  We  wanted  fair  elections ;  we  did  not  want  can 
didates  to  buy  themselves  into  office.  That  seemed 
reasonable,  so  we  adopted  a  law,  unique  in  one  par 
ticular:  that  if  you  bought  an  office,  you  didn't  get  it. 
I  admit  that  is  contrary  to  all  commercial  principles, 
but  I  think  it  is  pretty  good  political  doctrine.  .  .  . 

We  adopted  a  Corrupt  Practices  Act,  and  an  Elec 
tion  Act,  which  every  man  predicted  was  not  going  to 
work,  but  which  did  work — to  the  emancipation  of  the 
voters  of  New  Jersey. 

All  these  things  are  now  commonplaces  with  us.  We 
like  the  laws  that  we  have  passed,  and  no  man  ventures 
to  suggest  any  material  change  in  them.  Why  didn't 
we  get  them  long  ago?  What  hindered  us?  Why,  we 
had  a  closed  Government ;  not  an  open  Government.  It 
did  not  belong  to  us.  It  was  managed  by  little  groups 
of  men,  whose  names  we  knew,  but  whom  somehow  we 
didn't  seem  able  to  dislodge.  When  we  elected  men 
pledged  to  dislodge  them,  they  only  went  into  partner 
ship  with  them.  Apparently  what  was  necessary  was 
to  call  in  an  amateur  who  knew  so  little  about  the 
game  that  he  supposed  that  he  was  expected  to  do 
what  he  had  promised  to  do. 

The  intervention  of  this  simple-minded  "  ama 
teur  "  in  the  politics  of  the  world  may  one 
day  be  recognized  as  no  less  conspicuously  benefi 
cent  than  it  was  in  the  politics  of  New  Jersey. 


THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

IT  was  perhaps  the  accident  of  his  birth  and 
upbringing  in  the  South  that  originally  made 
Woodrow  Wilson  a  Democrat  rather  than  a 
Republican.  At  all  events,  a  Democrat  he  had 
been  from  his  boyhood  upwards.  We  have  seen 
that,  as  an  undergraduate,  he  declined  to  assume 
the  Republican  colors,  and  to  champion  a  pro 
tective  tariff,  even  in  the  mimic  warfare  of  a 
debating-club.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
he  was  temperamentally  a  Democrat  in  more 
than  a  merely  technical  and  party  sense.  He 
believed  profoundly  in  government  by  the  people 
in  the  widest  sense  of  the  word — not  in  govern 
ment  by  the  privileged  classes,  and  still  less  in 
government  by  gangs,  cabals  and  conspiracies. 
What  may  have  been  in  the  first  instance  an  acci 
dental  bias,  had  ripened,  through  study  and 
thought,  into  a  deep  and  settled  conviction.  Hav- 

49 


50  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

ing  made  a  searching  examination  of  all  forms  of 
human  government,  he  had  come  to  the  deliberate 
conclusion  that,  when  a  people  has  arrived  at  a 
certain  stage  of  political  intelligence,  it  is  best 
governed  by  persons  elected  to  give  effect  to  its 
predominant  will.  No  one  knew  better  than  he 
the  difficulty  of  securing  even  an  approximately 
accurate  expression  of  that  will;  no  one  knew  bet 
ter  the  abuses  to  which  popular  government  is 
exposed.  But  he  felt  that  the  worst  abuses  of 
democracy  were  less  noxious  and  more  corrigible 
than  the  abuses  of  other  forms  of  government, 
and  he  remained  unswervingly  loyal  to  the  Amer 
ican  Idea.  It  was  the  task  of  his  political  career 
to  secure  for  that  Idea  an  ever  fuller  and  purer 
expression  in  the  national  life. 

The  original  distinction  between  the  Repub 
lican  and  the  Democratic  parties  concerned  the 
respective  rights  of  the  Central  or  Federal  Gov 
ernment  and  the  Governments  of  the  individual 
states.  The  Republicans  insisted  on,  and  wished 
to  extend,  the  powers  of  the  President  and  Con 
gress,  the  Democrats  insisted  on  the  principle  of 
state  sovereignty,  and  were  jealous  of  all  en 
croachments.  The  Civil  War  was  a  tragically 
intransigeant  assertion  of  state  rights,  including 


THE  WHITE  HOUSE  51 

the  right  of  secession  from  the  Union.  The  South 
failed  in  the  great  argument,  and  no  reasonable 
Southerner  now  regrets  the  failure.  Neverthe 
less  the  South  remains  solidly  Democratic,  and 
the  principle  of  state  rights  remains  an  official 
plank  in  the  party  platform.  But  it  is  no  longer 
the  central  plank.  Of  late  years  the  most  promi 
nent  article  in  the  Democratic  creed  has  been  the 
principle  that  import  duties  should  be  imposed  for 
revenue  only,  and  not  for  protection  of  manu 
factures.  Under  cover  of  the  protective  tariff,  a 
great  system  of  monopolies  had  grown  up,  which 
Woodrow  Wilson  and  his  party  believed  to  be  in 
every  way  injurious  to  the  true  interests  of  the 
people.  It  was  on  that  issue  that  the  Presidential 
election  of  1912  was  fought. 

The  presidency  of  Mr.  Taft  had  been  a  disap 
pointment.  Though  an  able  and  an  honest  man, 
he  was  too  acquiescent.  He  lacked  the  energy 
and  initiative  demanded  by  the  conjuncture  of 
affairs.  Reform  was  in  the  air :  the  only  question 
was  as  to  the  principles  which  should  guide  it.  In 
the  three-cornered  contest  which  ultimately  took 
shape,  Mr.  Taft  and  the  orthodox  Republicans 
stood  for  an  easy-going  conservatism,  which  Mr. 
Wilson  described  as  "  do-nothingism  "  or  "  sit- 


52  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

ting  still  for  fear  something  should  happen;" 
Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  dissident,  or,  as  they  called 
themselves,  Progressive  Republicans,  stood  for 
reform  on  conservatives  lines ;  while  Mr.  Wilson 
and  the  Democrats  stood  for  what  was  considered 
radical  reform,  though  its  radicalism,  as  we  shall 
see,  was  of  no  very  alarming  type. 

The  principles  for  which  Mr.  Wilson  con 
tended  may  be  best  studied  in  his  campaign 
speeches,  a  selection  from  which  has  been 
published  under  the  title  of  "  The  New  Free 
dom." 

In  the  first  place,  let  us  take  an  utterance  in 
which  the  speaker  nails  the  colors  of  Democracy 
to  his  mast,  proclaiming  himself  a  Democrat  not 
merely  in  the  technical  but  in  the  most  funda 
mental  sense: 


The  utility,  the  vitality,  the  fruitage  of  life  does  not 
come  from  the  top  to  the  bottom;  it  comes,  like  the 
natural  growth  of  a  great  tree,  from  the  soil,  up 
through  the  trunk  into  the  branches  to  the  foliage  and 
the  fruit.  The  great  struggling  unknown  masses  of 
the  men  who  are  at  the  base  of  everything  are  the  dy 
namic  force  that  is  lifting  the  levels  -of  society.  A 
nation  is  as  great,  and  only  as  great,  as  her  rank  and 
file. 


THE  WHITE  HOUSE  53 

A  hostile  critic  might  say  that  such  a  paradox 
savored  not  so  much  of  the  democrat  as  of  the 
demagogue,  and  recommend  Mr.  Wilson  to  read 
Ibsen's  "  Enemy  of  the  People."  But,  rightly 
interpreted,  the  saying  is  profoundly  true.  The 
champions  of  things  as  they  were,  and  notably 
of  the  high  tariff  and  all  that  followed  in  its  train, 
pointed  to  the  "  prosperity  "  which  had  accom 
panied  the  organization  of  "  big  business."  This 
was  Mr.  Wilson's  reply.  He  meant  that  no 
amount  of  statistical  prosperity  is  worth  any 
thing  to  a  nation  if  it  is  purchased  at  the  cost 
of  human  worth  and  human  freedom.  No  nation 
deserves  to  be  called  "  great "  in  which  the  mass 
of  the  people  is  led  captive  by  organized  and  self- 
seeking  interests.  Towards  the  end  of  the  speech 
he  returned  to  the  theme  in  the  following  passage : 

Nothing  living  can  blossom  into  fruitage  unless 
through  nourishing  stalks  deep-planted  in  the  common 
soil.  The  rose  is  merely  the  evidence  of  the  vitality  of 
the  root;  and  the  real  source  of  its  beauty;  the  very 
blush  that  it  wears  upon  its  tender  cheek,  comes  from 
those  silent  sources  of  life  that  lie  hidden  in  the  chem 
istry  of  the  soil.  Up  from  that  soil,  up  from  the  silent 
bosom  of  the  earth,  rise  the  currents  of  life  and  energy. 
Up  from  the  common  soul,  up  from  the  quiet  heart  of 


54  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

the  people,  rise  joyously  to-day  streams  of  hope  and 
determination  bound  to  renew  the  face  of  the  earth  in 
glory. 

In  another  place,  Mr.  Wilson  thus  defined  his 
conception  of  that  bent  of  the  popular  will  which 
he  was  seeking  a  mandate  to  carry  into  action. 

We  are  in  a  temper  to  reconstruct  economic  society, 
as  we  were  once  in  a  temper  to  reconstruct  political 
society,  and  political  society  may  itself  undergo  a 
radical  modification  in  the  process.  I  doubt  if  any 
age  was  ever  more  conscious  of  its  task  or  more  unani 
mously  desirous  of  radical  and  extended  changes  in 
its  economic  and  political  practice. 

We  stand  in  the  presence  of  a  revolution — not  a 
bloody  revolution,  America  is  not  given  to  the  spilling 
of  blood — but  a  silent  revolution,  whereby  America  will 
insist  upon  recovering  in  practice  those  ideals  which 
she  has  always  professed,  a  Government  devoted  to  the 
general  interest,  and  not  to  special  interests. 

What,  then,  was  the  precise  evil  which  Mr. 
Wilson  pledged  himself  to  combat?  He  defined 
it  as  follows : 

The  facts  of  the  situation  amount  to  this:  That  a 
comparatively  small  number  of  men  control  the  raw 
material  of  this  country;  that  a  comparatively  small 


THE  WHITE  HOUSE  55 

number  of  men  control  the  water-powers  that  can  be 
made  useful  for  the  economical  production  of  the 
energy  to  drive  our  machinery ;  that  that  same  number 
of  men  largely  control  the  railroads ;  that  by  agree 
ments  handed  around  among  themselves,  they  control 
prices,  and  that  that  same  group  of  men  control  the 
larger  credits  of  the  country. 

In  another  place  he  enlarged  upon  this 
indictment : 

Who  have  been  consulted  when  important  measures 
of  government,  like  tariff  acts,  and  currency  acts,  and 
railroad  acts,  were  under  consideration?  The  people 
whom  the  tariff  chiefly  affects,  the  people  for  whom 
the  currency  is  supposed  to  exist,  the  people  who  pay 
the  duties  and  ride  on  the  railroads  ?  Oh !  no.  What 
do  they  know  about  such  matters?  The  gentlemen 
whose  ideas  have  been  sought  are  the  big  manufacturers, 
the  bankers,  and  the  heads  of  the  great  railroad  com 
binations.  The  masters  of  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  are  the  combined  capitalists  and  manu 
facturers  of  the  United  States.  It  is  written  over 
every  intimate  page  of  the  records  of  Congress;  it  is 
written  all  through  the  history  of  conferences  at  the 
White  House,  that  the  suggestions  of  economic  policy 
in  this  country  have  come  from  one  source,  not  from 
many  sources ;  the  benevolent  guardians,  the  kind- 
hearted  trustees,  who  have  taken  the  troubles  of  gov 
ernment  off  our  hands  have  become  so  conspicuous  that 


56  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

almost  anybody  can  write  out  a  list  of  them.  They 
have  become  so  conspicuous  that  their  names  are  men 
tioned  upon  almost  every  political  platform.  The  men 
who  have  undertaken  the  interesting  job  of  taking  care 
of  us  do  not  force  us  to  requite  them  with  anonymously 
directed  gratitude.  We  know  them  by  name. 

At  the  same  time  Mr.  Wilson  was  always 
scrupulous  in  asserting  that  he  was  not  attacking 
individuals : 

I  want  to  record  my  protest  against  any  discussion 
of  this  matter  which  would  seem  to  indicate  that  there 
are  bodies  of  our  fellow-citizens  who  are  trying  to 
grind  us  down  and  do  us  injustice.  There  are  some 
men  of  that  sort.  I  don't  know  how  they  sleep  o' 
nights,  but  there  are  men  of  that  kind.  Thank  God, 
they  are  not  numerous.  The  truth  is,  we  are  all  caught 
in  a  great  economic  system  which  is  heartless. 

The  danger  of  the  situation,  as  Mr.  Wilson 
saw  it,  lay  in  the  fact  expressed  in  the  old  saying 
that  a  corporation  "  has  neither  a  body  to  be 
kicked  nor  a  soul  to  be  damned."  The  law, 
framed  in  and  for  a  time  when  "  big  business  " 
in  the  modern  sense  was  as  yet  scarcely  dreamt  of, 
and  when  a  nation's  rights  in  the  national  re 
sources  of  its  territory  were  very  imperfectly 


THE  WHITE  HOUSE  57 

recognized,  was  quite  inadequate  to  dealing  with 
the  new  situation  which  had  arisen,  both  in  re 
gard  to  the  relations  between  employers  and  em 
ployed,  and  to  the  development  of  the  potential 
wealth  of  the  country.  On  the  latter  point  Mr. 
Wilson  said : 

Then  there  is  the  question  of  conservation.  What 
is  our  fear  about  conservation?  The  hands  that  are 
being  stretched  out  to  monopolize  our  forests,  to  pre 
vent  the  use  of  our  great  power-producing  streams, 
the  hands  that  are  being  stretched  into  the  bowels  of 
the  earth  to  take  possession  of  the  great  riches  that 
lie  hidden  in  Alaska  and  elsewhere  in  the  incomparable 
domain  of  the  United  States,  are  the  hands  of  monopoly. 
Are  these  men  to  continue  to  stand  at  the  elbow  of 
Government,  and  tell  us  how  we  are  to  save  ourselves — 
from  themselves?  You  cannot  settle  the  question  of 
conservation  while  monopoly  is  close  to  the  ears  of  those 
who  govern.  And  the  question  of  conservation  is  a 
great  deal  bigger  than  the  question  of  saving  our 
forests  and  our  mineral  resources  and  our  waters ;  it  is 
as  big  as  the  life  and  happiness  and  strength  and  elas 
ticity  and  hope  of  our  people. 

In  a  later  speech  he  drove  home  the  same 
point  with  still  greater  emphasis. 

What  would  our  forests  be  worth  without  vigorous 
and  intelligent  men  to  make  use  of  them?  Why  should 


58  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

we  conserve  our  natural  resources,  unless  we  can  by  the 
magic  of  industry  transmute  them  into  the  wealth  of 
the  world?  What  transmutes  them  into  that  wealth, 
if  not  the  skill  and  the  touch  of  the  men  who  go  daily 
to  their  toil,  and  who  constitute  the  great  body  of  the 
American  people?  What  I  am  interested  in  is  having 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  more  concerned 
about  human  rights  than  about  property  rights.  Prop 
erty  is  an  instrument  of  humanity;  humanity  isn't  an 
instrument  of  property.  And  yet  when  you  see  some 
men  riding  their  great  industries  as  if  they  were  driving 
a  car  of  juggernaut,  not  looking  to  see  what  multitudes 
prostrate  themselves  before  the  car  and  lose  their  lives 
in  the  crushing  effect  of  their  industry,  you  wonder  how 
long  men  are  going  to  be  permitted  to  think  more  of 
their  machinery  than  they  think  of  their  men. 

And  how  did  Mr.  Wilson  propose  to  set  about 
the  remedying  of  these  abuses  ?  In  the  first  place, 
of  course,  he  declared  for  the  lowering  of  the 
tariff  wall  behind  which  they  had  ensconced 
themselves — the  tariff  which  made  monopoly 
possible,  and  handed  over  the  government  of  the 
country  to  the  small  groups  of  men  who  benefited 
by  it.  Then  he  demanded  the  opening-up  of  the 
processes  of  politics.  "  They  have  been  too 
secret,"  he  said,  "  too  complicated,  too  round 
about;  they  have  consisted  too  much  of  private 


THE  WHITE  HOUSE  59 

conferences  and  secret  understandings,  of  the 
control  of  legislation  by  men  who  were  not  legis 
lators,  but  who  stood  outside  and  dictated,  con 
trolling  oftentimes  by  very  questionable  means 
which  they  would  not  have  dreamed  of  allowing 
to  become  public."  Then  he  insisted  on  the  open- 
ing-up  of  "  the  processes  of  capital  as  well  as  the 
processes  of  politics  "  — "  denying  to  those  who 
conduct  great  modern  operations  of  business  the 
privacy  that  used  to  belong  properly  enough  to 
men  who  used  only  their  own  capital  and  their  in 
dividual  energy  in  business  ": 

If  there  is  nothing  to  conceal,  then  why  conceal  it? 
If  it  is  a  public  game,  why  play  it  in  private?  If  it  is 
a  public  game,  then  why  not  come  out  into  the  open 
and  play  it  in  public?  You  have  got  to  cure  diseased 
politics  as  we  nowadays  cure  tuberculosis,  by  making 
all  the  people  who  suffer  from  it  live  out  of  doors; 
not  only  spend  their  days  out  of  doors  and  walk 
around,  but  sleep  out  of  doors ;  always  remain  in  the 
open,  where  they  will  be  accessible  to  fresh,  nourishing 
and  revivifying  influences. 

In  this  connection  he  used  one  of  those  admi 
rable  illustrations  which  not  infrequently  light  up 
his  speeches: 


60  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

It  used  to  be  true  in  our  cities  that  every  family 
occupied  a  separate  house  of  its  own,  that  every  family 
had  its  own  little  premises,  that  every  family  was  sepa 
rated  in  its  life  from  every  other  family.  That  is  no 
longer  the  case  in  our  great  cities.  Families  live  in 
tenements,  they  live  in  flats,  they  live  on  floors;  they 
are  piled  layer  upon  layer  in  the  great  tenement  houses 
of  our  crowded  districts.  ...  In  some  foreign  coun 
tries  they  have  made  much  more  progress  than  we  in 
handling  these  things.  In  the  city  of  Glasgow,  for 
example  (Glasgow  is  one  of  the  model  cities  of  the 
world),  they  have  made  up  their  minds  that  the  entries 
and  the  hallways  of  great  tenements  are  public  streets. 
Therefore,  the  policeman  goes  up  the  stairway,  and 
patrols  the  corridors;  the  lighting  department  of  the 
city  sees  to  it  that  the  halls  are  abundantly  lighted. 
The  city  does  not  deceive  itself  into  supposing  that  that 
great  building  is  a  unit  from  which  the  police  are  to 
keep  out  and  the  civic  authority  to  be  excluded,  but  it 
says :  "  These  are  public  highways,  and  light  is  needed 
in  them,  and  control  by  the  authority  of  the  city." 

I  liken  that  to  our  great  modern  industrial  enter 
prises.  A  corporation  is  very  like  a  large  tenement 
house;  it  isn't  the  premises  of  a  single  commercial 
family;  it  is  just  as  much  a  public  affair  as  a  tenement 
house  is  a  network  of  public  highways. 

One  of  the  abuses  to  be  remedied  by  dragging 
"  big  business  "  out  into  the  light  was  the  inter 
locking  of  directorships,  whereby  one  group  of 


THE  WHITE  HOUSE  61 

men  was  able  to  control,  not  only  their  only  par 
ticular  business,  but  all  the  ancillary  services 
which  ought  to  be  freely  at  the  disposal  of  every 
one.  Mr.  Wilson  pointed  out,  for  example,  that 
"  the  twenty-four  men  who  control  the  United 
States  Steel  Corporation  were  either  presidents 
or  vice-presidents  or  directors  in  fifty-five  per 
cent,  of  the  railways  of  the  United  States  "  —a 
condition  of  things  which  could  not  but  throw 
grave  doubts  upon  the  treatment  likely  to  be 
meted  out  to  rival  steel  producers  in  regard  to 
the  transport  either  of  raw  materials  or  of  fin 
ished  products.  Then,  again,  the  same  men  were 
very  probably  directors  of  most  of  the  leading 
banks,  and  thus  able  to  restrict,  if  not  entirely  to 
cut  off,  the  credit  facilities  of  any  one  who 
threatened  them  with  competition.  Such  con 
centrations  of  power  in  the  hands  of  small  groups 
of  men  were  manifestly  opposed  to  public  policy ; 
and  Mr.  Wilson  believed  that  the  way  to  remedy 
them  was  to  throw  the  backstairs  and  corridors 
of  "  big  business  "  open  to  the  light  of  public 
inspection. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  too  had  his  plan  for  dealing  with 
these  evils.  His  proposal  was  not  to  overthrow 
monopolies,  but  to  subject  them  to  government 


62  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

control.     Of  that  scheme  Mr.  Wilson  spoke  in 
the  following  terms: 

The  Roosevelt  plan  is  that  there  shall  be  an  indus 
trial  commission  charged  with  the  supervision  of  the 
great  monopolistic  combinations  which  have  been 
formed  under  the  protection  of  the  tariff,  and  that 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  shall  see  to  it 
that  these  gentlemen  who  have  conquered  labor  shall 
be  kind  to  labor.  I  find,  then,  the  proposition  to  be 
this:  That  there  shall  be  two  masters,  the  great  cor 
poration,  and  over  it  the  Government  of  the  United 
States;  and  I  ask  who  is  going  to  be  master  of  the 
Government  of  the  United  States?  It  has  a  master 
now — those  who  in  combination  control  these  monop 
olies.  And  if  the  Government  controlled  by  the 
monopolies  in  its  turn  controls  the  monopolies,  the 
partnership  is  finally  consummated. 

In  another  place,  he  put  his  point  even  more 
forcibly : 

If  the  Government  is  to  tell  big  business  men  how  to 
run  their  business,  then  don't  you  see  that  big  business 
men  have  to  get  closer  to  the  Government  even  than 
they  are  now?  Don't  you  see  that  they  must  capture 
the  Government,  in  order  not  to  be  restrained  too 
much  by  it?  Got  to  capture  the  Government?  They 
have  already  captured  it.  Are  you  going  to  invite 


THE  WHITE  HOUSE  63 

those  inside  to  stay  inside?  They  don't  have  to  get 
there.  They  are  there.  Are  you  going  to  own  your 
own  premises,  or  are  you  not?  That  is  your  choice. 
Are  you  going  to  say :  "  You  didn't  get  into  the  house 
the  right  way,  but  you  are  in  there,  God  bless  you; 
we  will  stand  out  here  in  the  cold,  and  you  can  hand  us 
out  something  once  in  a  while  ?  " 

It  is  not  for  me  to  pronounce  upon  the  justice 
of  this  criticism;  but  the  delightful  raciness  of 
its  wording  is  beyond  dispute. 

These  extracts  give  but  a  disconnected  view 
of  the  well-knit  body  of  thought  which  Mr. 
Wilson  laid  before  his  countrymen.  The  gist  of 
his  doctrine  was  that  the  people  must  resume 
control  of  their  own  affairs,  taking  it  out  of  the 
hands  of  predatory  millionaires  working  in  col 
lusion  with  political  bosses  on  the  one  hand,  and 
with  irresponsible  committee-men  on  the  other. 
He  believed  that  the  American  people  were  still 
capable  of  the  effort  required  to  this  end,  though 
"  their  self-reliance  had  been  sapped  by  years 
of  submission  to  the  doctrine  that  prosperity  is 
something  that  benevolent  magnates  provide 
with  the  aid  of  the  Government."  "  The  Ameri 
can  people,"  he  said,  "are  not  naturally  stand 
patters.  Progress  is  the  word  that  charms  their 


64  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

ears  and  stirs  their  hearts."  He  took  no  melo 
dramatic  view  of  the  forces  opposed  to  him,  but 
he  did  not  underrate  their  strength.  Here  is 
a  remark  which  evidently  speaks  from  the  heart 
of  his  experience  as  an  administrator,  and  which 
all  who  have  fought  the  battles  of  progress  will 
endorse : 

For  my  part,  I  am  very  much  more  afraid  of  the 
man  who  does  a  bad  thing  and  does  not  know  it  is  bad 
than  of  the  man  who  does  a  bad  thing  and  knows  it  is 
bad;  because  I  think  that  in  public  affairs  stupidity  is 
more  dangerous  than  knavery,  because  harder  to  fight 
and  dislodge. 

"  Mit  der  Dummheit  kampfen  Gotter  selbst 
vergebens,"  said  Schiller's  Talbot;  and  though 
Mr.  Wilson  is  too  staunch  an  optimist  to  say 
that  "  the  struggle  nought  availeth,"  he  knows 
how  disheartening  it  is.  Here  is  another  remark 
from  the  same  speech  in  which,  for  once,  we  may 
discern  a  little  touch  of  bitterness : 

The  idea  of  the  Presidents  we  have  recently  had  has 
been  that  they  were  Presidents  of  a  National  Board 
of  Trustees.  That  is  not  my  idea.  I  have  been  Presi 
dent  of  one  board  of  trustees,  and  I  do  not  care  to 
have  another  on  my  hands.  I  want  to  be  President  of 
the  people  of  the  United  States. 


THE  WHITE  HOUSE  65 

He  became  President  of  the  United  States, 
but  it  was  in  virtue  of  the  division  in  the  forces 
opposed  to  him.  In  the  votes  of  the  electoral 
college  he  had  an  immense  majority.  The 
figures  were: 

Wilson  435 

Roosevelt  88 

Taft  8 

But,  says  Mr.  Wilson  Harris,  "the  popular 
vote  rarely  bears  any  recognizable  relation  to 
the  electoral  vote,  since  the  party  gaining  a 
series  of  small  majorities  in  populous  states  like 
New  York  or  Pennsylvania  or  Illinois  secures 
not  merely  a  proportionate  majority,  but  the 
whole  state  vote,  in  the  electoral  college."  The 
actual  number  of  votes  cast  for  the  three  candi 
dates  were: 

Wilson  6,286,987 

Roosevelt  4,125,804 

Taft  3,475,813 

Thus  the  whole  Democratic  vote  fell  more 
than  a  million  and  a  quarter  short  of  the  whole 
Republican  vote.  A  single  strong  Republican 
candidate  would  in  all  probability  have  carried 


66  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

the  day.  On  the  other  hand,  in  both  of  the 
Houses  of  Congress  there  was  (what  is  by  no 
means  a  foregone  conclusion)  a  majority  of  the 
President's  party. 

Mr.  Wilson  very  quickly  showed  that  the 
energy  and  determination  which  had  made  him 
the  real,  and  not  merely  nominal,  Governor  of 
New  Jersey,  were  not  going  to  desert  him  on 
the  wider  scene  of  national  politics.  He  de 
livered  in  person  his  first  message  to  Congress, 
a  practice  which  had  the  authority  of  Washing 
ton  and  John  Adams  in  its  favor,  but  which 
had  fallen  into  disuse  for  more  than  a  century. 
Jefferson,  an  ineffective  speaker,  had  preferred 
to  send  his  messages  in  writing,  and  all  subse 
quent  Presidents — even  the  facund  Roosevelt- 
had  followed  his  example.  The  first  measure 
on  which  the  new  President  insisted  was,  of 
course,  a  drastic  downward  revision  of  the 
tariff;  and  this  was  duly  effected,  though  not 
without  difficulty.  At  the  same  time,  in  order 
to  make  good  the  loss  of  revenue  involved  in 
the  freeing  of  many  articles,  and  lowering  of 
the  duties  on  others,  advantage  was  taken  of  a 
new  Amendment  to  the  Constitution,  and  a 
small  Federal  income-tax  was  imposed.  Scarcely 


THE  WHITE  HOUSE  61 

less  important  than  the  revision  of  the  tariff  was 
a  Currency  Bill,  the  purpose  of  which  the  Presi 
dent  thus  expounded: 

It  is  absolutely  imperative  that  we  should  give  the 
business  men  of  this  country  a  banking  and  currency 
system  by  means  of  which  they  can  make  use  of  the 
freedom  of  enterprise  and  of  individual  initiative  which 
we  are  about  to  bestow  on  them.  .  .  .  We  must  have 
a  currency,  not  rigid  as  now,  but  readily,  elastically 
responsive  to  sound  credit.  .  .  .  Our  banking  laws 
must  mobilize  reserves,  must  not  permit  the  concen 
tration  anywhere  in  a  few  hands  of  the  monetary  re 
sources  of  the  country,  or  their  use  for  speculative 
purposes  in  such  volume  as  to  hinder  or  impede  or 
stand  in  the  way  of  other  more  legitimate,  more  fruit 
ful  uses. 

The  effect  of  the  hill — which  was  carried 
against  vigorous  opposition,  mainly  by  the  per 
sonal  incentive  of  the  President — was  to  estab 
lish  a  new  system  of  Federal  Reserve  Banks, 
under  the  control  of  a  Federal  Reserve  Board 
at  Washington,  directed  by  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  and  the  Comptroller  of  Currency. 
It  is  said  to  have  proved  itself  already  a  very 
remarkable  success.  "  The  banking  organs," 
says  Mr.  H.  J.  Ford,  "  which  started  out  by 


68  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

treating  the  Act  as  a  thing  of  very  doubtful 
value,  gradually  swung  around  to  the  position 
of  favoring  an  extension  of  its  scope.  ... 
Whatever  bitterness  or  resentment  was  left 
after  the  Act  was  swept  away  by  the  outbreak 
of  the  European  War.  The  thought  that  the 
country  might  have  had  to  face  the  financial 
disturbance  caused  by  that  event  with  no  more 
facilities  than  the  crazy  old  system  supplied  was 
simply  appalling." 

These  were  the  principal  measures  of  Mr. 
Wilson's  first  year  of  office.  The  second  year, 
1914,  saw  a  more  direct  attack  upon  the 
monopolies.  A  blow  was  struck  against  "  inter 
locking  directorships,"  *  a  Federal  Trade  Com 
mission  was  established,  and  an  Act  was  passed 
which  strengthened  the  hands  of  an  injured 
party  under  the  existing  and  anti-trust  laws, 
defined  certain  abuses,  discriminations  and  re 
straints  of  trade,  and  legalized  the  boycott  in 

*"  After  the  report  of  a  Congressional  Committee  on  money 
combines,"  says  Mr.  Wilson  Harris,  "the  members  of  the  great 
financial  house  of  Morgan  resigned  thirty  directorships  of  rail 
road  and  other  companies,  including  New  York  Central  and  other 
Vanderbilt  lines,  the  Western  Union  Telegraph  Company,  the 
United  States  Steel  Corporation,  the  Guaranty  and  other  Trust 
Companies,  and  the  Westinghouse  Electric  and  Manufacturing 
Company." 


THE  WHITE  HOUSE  69 

labor  disputes.  On  the  whole,  when  the  war 
broke  out,  Mr.  Wilson  was  in  a  fair  way  to 
redeem  the  pledges  he  had  given,  with  regard  to 
domestic  policy.  He  had  at  any  rate  taken  his 
place,  once  for  all,  among  those  Presidents 
whose  personality  has  been  powerful  enough  to 
override  the  hampering  provisions  of  the  Con 
stitution,  and  impress  itself  deeply  upon  the 
nation's  history. 

The  Democrats  are  sometimes  called  the 
Radicals  of  America,  and  Mr.  Wilson's  policy 
has  been  both  praised  and  condemned  for  its 
radicalism.  Surely  with  very  insufficient  reason. 
The  radical  solution  of  the  problem  of  the 
Trusts  would  be  the  Socialist  solution;  and  none 
other  is  radical.  But  Mr.  Wilson  is  as  far  from 
coquetting  with  Socialism  as  any  Trust  magnate 
in  America.  He  is  an  individualist  to  the  back 
bone.  Free  competition  is  his  watchword.  It 
is  because  the  Trusts  strangle  competition  that 
he  is  their  enemy.  They  prevent  youthful 
energy  and  ability  from  obtaining  the  capital 
necessary  for  starting  a  competitive  enterprise; 
and  if  by  chance  it  is  started,  they  "  freeze  it 
out "  through  their  control  of  the  subsidiary 
services  on  which  trade  and  manufacture  de-j 


70  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

pend.  Of  the  wastefulness  of  competition  Mr. 
Wilson  has  no  fear.  He  does  not  for  a  moment 
consider  the  policy  of  taking  over  the  Trusts 
(with  the  economies  they  undoubtedly  effect  or 
might  effect)  and  working  them  for  the  benefit 
of  the  people.  The  word  "  nationalization " 
finds  no  place  in  his  vocabulary.  He  would  have 
private  enterprise  open  to  national  or  state  in 
spection,  but  he  is  quite  at  one  with  the  mass 
of  his  countrymen  in  his  instinctive  distaste  for 
national  or  municipal  enterprise.  He  will  go 
so  far  (we  have  seen)  as  to  lay  it  down  that 
"Property  is  an  instrument  of  humanity:  hu 
manity  isn't  an  instrument  of  property  " ;  but 
he  steers  clear  of  all  criticism  of  the  merits  of 
private  property  as  an  instrument  of  human 
welfare.  He  insists  on  the  conservation  of  na 
tional  resources  not  already  monopolized;  but 
monopolization  already  effected  is  in  his  eyes 
sacred.  Prescription  he  accepts  as  establishing 
not  only  a  legal  but  a  moral  title.  He  is  all  for 
"  the  right  of  the  Government  to  go  down  into 
the  mines  to  see  whether  human  beings  are  prop 
erly  treated  in  them  or  not;  to  see  whether 
accidents  are  properly  safeguarded  against;  to 
see  whether  modern  economical  methods  of  using 


THE  WHITE  HOUSE  71 

these  inestimable  riches  of  the  earth  are  followed 
or  are  not  followed  "  —but,  though  the  insistence 
on  "  economical  methods  "  of  operation  would 
seem  to  be  an  encroachment  on  the  rights  of 
private  property,  the  idea  of  resuming  for  the 
nation  "  these  inestimable  riches  "  is  never  for 
a  moment  mooted. 

So  much  by  way,  not  of  criticism,  but  of 
definition.  It  seemed  well  to  point  out  the 
limits  of  Mr.  Wilson's  radicalism.  If  he  had 
shown  the  least  inclination  to  dally  with  Social 
ism,  he  would  never  have  been  President  of  the 
United  States,  for  he  would  not  have  been  the 
representative  American  he  undoubtedly  is.  In 
that  fact  lies  the  source  of  his  strength.  He 
stands  at  the  head  of  the  best  American  political 
thought — but  he  does  not  outstrip  it.  An  ideal 
ist  he  is ;  but  both  by  constitution  and  conviction 
he  holds  that  it  is  the  part  of  political  sanity  to 
work  for  practicable  ideals.  He  does  not  waste 
time  on  speculating  as  to  what  may  lie  beyond 
the  horizon. 

It  was  fated,  however,  that  during  Mr.  Wil 
son's  tenure  of  office,  foreign  affairs  should 
absorb  the  attention  of  the  country,  almost  to 
the  exclusion  of  even  the  most  urgent  questions 


72  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

of  domestic  policy;  and  in  relation  to  foreign 
affairs  the  constitution  gives  the  President  al 
most  unlimited  powers.  One  extremely  difficult 
problem — that  of  Mexico — confronted  him  from 
the  very  first.  It  put  his  qualities  as  a  states 
man  to  the  most  searching  test:  and  many 
people  held  that  he  failed  to  rise  to  the  occasion. 
Let  us  see  whether  this  view  can  be  maintained. 


VI 

MEXICO 

NOTHING  in  President  Wilson's  career  has  been 
more  bitterly  criticized,  both  in  his  own  country 
and  abroad,  than  his  treatment  of  the  Mexican 
problem.  It  is  probable  that  when  the  time  for 
dispassionate  judgment  arrives,  nothing  will  be 
found  to  give  clearer  evidence  of  his  strength  of 
character  and  his  political  insight. 

The  problem  was  indescribably  complex  and 
thorny.  After  casting  off  the  yoke  of  Spain  in 
1824,  Mexico  had  passed  through  half  a  century 
of  revolution  upon  revolution.  In  that  space  of 
time,  says  Mr.  Wilson  Harris,  "  it  could  boast 
of  fifty-two  presidents  or  dictators,  one  emperor 
and  one  regent,  most  of  whom  met  violent 
deaths  at  the  hands  of  their  successors."  At 
last,  in  1876,  the  Presidency  fell  to  General 
Porfirio  Diaz,  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  revolt 
against  the  ill-fated  Maximilian.  A  man  of 

73 


74  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

ruthless  will  and  great  executive  ability,  he 
established  what  his  admirers  have  described 
as  a  benevolent  despotism,  which  endured  for 
thirty-five  years.  His  benevolence,  unfortu 
nately,  was  lavished  upon  foreign  capitalists 
rather  than  upon  the  people  from  whose  ranks 
he  had  risen.  He  gave  the  country  peace,  and 
he  gave  it  statistical  prosperity.  Year  by  year 
the  spread  of  railroads,  the  growth  of  mining 
and  manufactures,  the  increase  of  exports  and 
imports,  called  forth  the  ecstatic  comments  of 
the  financial  Press.  But  this  effect  was  at 
tained  by  the  simple  process  of  giving  away  with 
both  hands,  mainly  to  foreign  concessionaires, 
the  magnificent  resources  of  the  country.  For 
the  condition  of  the  people  Don  Porfirio  cared 
nothing.  Education  was  neglected,  labor  trou 
bles  were  suppressed  with  a  relentless  hand, 
which,  on  at  least  one  occasion,  did  not  stop 
short  of  massacre.  The  appearance  of  law  and 
order  was  maintained  by  the  exercise  of  an 
unscrupulous  and  often  cruel  despotism. 
Though  Diaz  was  not  personally  corrupt — he 
does  not  seem  to  have  enriched  himself  beyond 
a  reasonable  measure — he  was  surrounded  by  a 
band  of  politicians,  known  as  the  tientificos,  for 


MEXICO  75 

whom  even  this  moderate  claim  cannot  be  ad 
vanced.  He  went  to  the  opposite  extreme  from 
his  contemporary,  Paul  Kruger.  The  one 
fought  to  the  death  against  the  development  of 
his  country  by  outside  enterprise;  the  other  held 
out  every  possible  inducement  to  foreign  ex 
ploitation. 

At  last  the  "  benevolent  despotism "  became 
unendurable,  and  a  large  party  rose  against  it, 
under  the  leadership  of  Francisco  Madero,  a 
member  of  a  great  landowning  family.  A  well- 
meaning  idealist  of  no  conspicuous  ability,  Ma 
dero  succeeded  in  putting  Diaz  to  flight,  and 
was  duly  elected  President.  But  tranquillity 
was  never  really  restored ;  and  a  fortnight  before 
Woodrow  Wilson's  inauguration  Madero  was 
murdered,  and  a  rebel  leader  named  Victoriano 
Huerta  declared  himself  President. 

The  moment  he  assumed  office,  then,  Wilson 
found  himself  confronted  with  a  very  knotty 
question:  should  Huerta  be  recognized?  The 
foreigners  in  Mexico,  who  had  suffered  great 
losses,  and  endured  not  a  few  perils,  during  the 
disturbances,  answered  almost  unanimously  in 
the  affirmative.  They  seem  to  have  hoped  that 
Huerta  might  prove  another  Diaz — less  civilized 


76  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

and  even  less  scrupulous,  but  capable  of  main 
taining  order  with  an  iron  hand.  European 
Governments  took  this  view  and  recognized  the 
usurper:  Wilson,  in  face  of  the  most  urgent 
pressure,  resolutely  declined  to  do  so.  He  was 
too  faithful  to  democratic  principle  to  employ 
the  prestige  of  the  United  States  in  buttressing 
a  blood-stained  tyranny;  and  he  probably 
thought,  with  reason,  that,  even  if  he  were 
tempted  to  do  so,  the  tyranny  could  not  long 
maintain  itself.  In  other  words  he  did  not  want 
a  new  and  more  ruffianly  Diaz,  and  did  not  be 
lieve  that,  even  if  he  had  wanted  him,  he  could 
have  found  him  in  Huerta. 

The  advocates  of  a  "  strong  "  policy  were  not 
reconciled  to  what  they  considered  Mr.  Wilson's 
infirmity  of  purpose  when  he  cordially  accepted 
a  proposal  made  by  the  A.B.C.  states  of  South 
America — Argentine,  Brazil,  Chile — for  joint 
mediation  in  Mexico.  This  was  regarded  by 
his  critics  as  an  unworthy  condescension,  and  a 
shirking  of  responsibility  which  the  United 
States  ought  to  have  faced  alone.  A  confer 
ence  assembled  at  Niagara — on  Canadian  soil- 
in  May,  1914.  It  did  not  lead  to  definite  action, 
but  certainly  promoted  a  good  understanding 


MEXICO  77 

between  the  Powers  of  the  South  and  the  great 
Power  of  the  North. 

Meanwhile  chaos  reigned  in  Mexico,  where 
two  other  guerilla  leaders,  Carranza  and  Villa, 
were  making  war  upon  Huerta.  The  arrest  by 
Huertists,  in  April,  1914,  of  a  landing-party 
of  American  sailors  led  to  a  serious  complica 
tion,  and  the  port  of  Vera  Cruz  was  occupied 
by  an  American  force,  and  held  (not  without 
loss)  till  reparation  was  made.  Huerta  soon 
found  his  position  untenable,  and  fled  the  coun 
try,  leaving  it  in  the  hands  of  three  rival  Presi 
dents,  Carranza,  Villa,  and  Zapata.  In  August, 
1914,  a  conference  of  representatives  of  Latin- 
American  states  met,  by  Mr.  Wilson's  invita 
tion,  at  Washington,  and  joint  Pan-American 
intervention  was  agreed  upon,  if,  within  three 
months,  affairs  in  Mexico  had  not  taken  a  de 
cided  turn  for  the  better.  But  now  it  seemed 
that  Carranza  was  actually  gaining  the  upper 
hand,  and  had  a  fair  prospect  of  restoring  peace 
and  order.  Mr.  Wilson  decided  to  recognize 
his  Government;  but  the  hopes  founded  upon 
his  success  proved  vain.  The  next  incident  was 
an  irruption  by  the  bandit  Villa  into  American 
territory.  This  necessitated  the  dispatch  of  a 


78  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

punitive  expedition  under  General  Pershing, 
which  was  unable  to  round  up  the  offender — a 
practically  impossible  feat — and  was  vehe 
mently  resented  by  Carranza.  Thus  the  action 
of  President  Wilson's  Government  seemed  fated 
to  appear  inglorious  and  ineffectual.  The  pacifi 
cation  of  Mexico  remained — and  remains — unac 
complished;  and  the  "interests"  which  suffered 
not  unnaturally  laid  the  blame  upon  the  "  pusil 
lanimity,"  the  "  vacillation,"  the  "  opportunism  " 
of  the  President's  policy. 

Never  were  terms  at  once  so  specious  and  so 
utterly  misapplied.  It  is  not  pusillanimity  and 
vacillation,  but  magnanimity  and  constancy,  that 
pursues  an  unpopular  and  unimpressive  course 
merely  because  it  happens  that,  on  a  calm  bal 
ancing  of  the  consequences,  the  only  possible 
alternative  is  seen  to  be  disastrous.  What  was 
the  alternative  to  President  Wilson's  policy? 
It  could  only  have  been,  in  the  first  place,  a 
great  and  bloody  war.  All  parties  in  Mexico— 
as  was  clear  from  the  declarations  of  Madero 
and  the  action  of  Carranza — would  have  made 
common  cause  against  an  invader,  and  the 
United  States  would  have  had  on  their  hands  a 
problem  vaster  and  more  difficult  than  that 


MEXICO  79 

which  Britain  encountered  in  South  Africa.  In 
the  second  place,  this  war  would  have  worn  the 
appearance,  at  any  rate,  of  a  war  of  conquest, 
and  would  have  alienated  once  for  all  the  other 
Spanish-American  states,  already  sufficiently 
prone  to  question  the  disinterestedness  of  their 
great  neighbor  of  the  North.  In  the  third  place, 
the  utmost  success  attainable  would  have  left 
the  United  States  saddled  with  the  charge  of 
a  vassal  republic,  resentful,  turbulent,  entirely 
indisposed  to  accept  and  profit  by  the  tutelage 
of  its  conqueror.  It  would  have  had  to  be 
controlled,  for  a  long  time  at  any  rate,  by 
American  proconsuls,  who,  if  they  acted  hon 
estly  in  the  interests  of  the  people,  could  not 
possibly  have  revived  the  system  of  exploitation 
which  had  flourished  under  Diaz,  and  which 
was  the  very  thing  that  those  who  clamored  for 
intervention  were  longing  to  see  revived.  All 
this  President  Wilson  saw;  and  we  can  scarcely 
doubt  that,  after  August,  1914,  he  was  more  and 
more  convinced  that,  when  the  larger  interests 
of  his  country  and  of  humanity  were  inextrica 
bly  involved  in  the  European  War,  it  would  be 
madness  for  the  United  States  to  tie  themselves 
up  in  a  local  complication  which  would  absorb 


80  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

their  energies  for  years,  and  from  which  no 
really  satisfactory  issue  was  within  the  horizon 
of  practical  politics.  When  civilization  and 
order  reign  on  one  side  of  a  frontier  and  chaotic 
semi-barbarism  on  the  other,  there  is  always  a 
great  temptation  for  the  civilized  Power  to  step 
in  and  restore  with  the  strong  hand — or,  in  more 
modern  parlance,  with  "  the  big  stick  "  —tran 
quillity  and  the  reign  of  law.  Nor  is  it  to  be 
doubted  that  there  are  occasions  when  such  a 
course  of  action  is  justified.  But  history  will 
probably  hold  with  President  Wilson  that  this 
was  not  one  of  these  occasions.  Effective  inter 
vention  would  have  forced  upon  the  United 
States  a  part  which  neither  their  principles  nor 
the  form  of  their  polity  fitted  them  to  play. 
It  would  have  compromised  instead  of  confirm 
ing  the  position  to  which  they  naturally  aspired 
of  '"  primus  inter  pares  "  among  the  republics 
of  the  New  World.  It  would  for  a  time  have 
made  bad  worse  in  Mexico,  and  might  in  the 
end  have  retarded  rather  than  hastened  the  paci 
fication  of  the  country  and  the  establishment  of 
true  self-government,  as  distinct  from  an  autoc 
racy  working  (when  it  suited  its  convenience) 
under  a  thin  pretense  of  republican  forms. 


MEXICO  81 

In  a  conjuncture  in  which  the  only  choice 
lies,  not  between  good  and  evil,  but  between 
two  degrees  of  ill,  the  wise  course  and  the  brave 
course  is  to  choose  the  lesser  degree,  even  if  the 
choice  seem  a  tame  and  unheroic  one.  And  to 
persist  in  that  choice  in  the  face  of  bitter,  violent 
and  contemptuous  criticism  may  well  be  the 
truly  heroic  part  to  play. 


VII 

INTO  THE  WAR 

IT  is  not  my  intention  to  write  a  history  of  the 
various  phases  of  President  Wilson's  action  with 
regard  to  the  European  war.  A  mere  summary 
of  the  details  would  be  tedious,  while  a  full  dis 
cussion  of  the  various  issues  involved  would  run 
into  volumes.  My  purpose  is  merely  to  survey 
the  conditions  which  inevitably  shaped  the  Presi 
dent's  policy — conditions  which  some  of  his 
critics  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  do  not  even 
now  fully  realize. 

Though  the  President  of  the  United  States 
is  mainly  responsible  for  the  conduct  of  the  for 
eign  affairs,  it  is  not  he,  but  Congress,  that  has 
the  final  voice  in  choosing  between  peace  and 
war.  This  means  that  it  is  literally  impossible 
for  the  President  to  declare  war  unless  he  has 
the  country,  as  represented  by  Congress,  behind 
him.  But  this  technical  impossibility  was  only 
the  outward  and  visible  sign  of  a  more  deep- 


INTO  THE  WAR  83 

seated  impediment  to  any  early  and  prompt 
intervention  in  the  European  struggle.  It  was 
possible  that,  in  a  moment  of  excitement,  such 
as  that  which  followed  the  Lusitania  outrage, 
a  snatch  vote  of  Congress  might  have  sanctioned 
war;  but  that  would  have  been  of  little  use 
unless  the  real  heart  of  the  people  had  sanc 
tioned  the  vote  of  Congress.  America  possessed 
no  ready-made  military  machine  that  could  be 
set  in  motion  at  the  touch  of  a  button.  The 
machine  had  to  be  created;  and  how  could  it  be 
created  if  the  heart  of  the  people  were  not  in 
the  effort?  Merely  nominal  intervention,  inef 
fective  and  impotent,  would  have  been  very 
much  worse  than  useless.  Every  President 
would  have  felt  this;  but  Mr.  Wilson  aspired 
to  be,  and  in  a  very  real  sense  was,  peculiarly 
a  people's  President,  representing  no  class,  n$r 
region,  nor  interest,  but  the  people  as  a  whole. 
Without  a  united  nation  behind  him  he  could 
not  move  and  he  did  not  wish  to  move ;  and  until 
the  nation  was  united,  the  strictest  neutrality 
was  not  only  the  correct,  but  the  only  wise 
attitude  to  adopt. 

Was  the  nation  united  in  the  early  months 
of  the  war?    Was  it  united  even  after  the  first 


84  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

great  U-boat  crimes — the  sinking  of  the  Lusi- 
tania  and  the  Arabic — had  revealed  the  menace 
to  civilization  involved  in  German  anarchism? 
The  only  answer  to  these  questions  is:  certainly 
not.  There  has  seldom  been  a  less  united  na 
tion,  or  one  pulled  in  different  ways  by  a  greater 
variety  of  forces. 

In  the  first  place,  about  one  in  eleven  of  the 
whole  population  was  either  born  in*  Germany 
or  born  in  America  of  German  parents.  Many 
of  these  "  hyphenated  Americans  "  were  deeply 
infected  with  the  unscrupulous  megalomania 
which  had  impelled  Germany  upon  her  reckless 
career ;  while  almost  all  of  them  were  eager  to 
adopt  the  German  legend  of  &  peaceful  Empire 
wantonly  attacked,  .and  to  palliate  the  crimes  of 
Kultur  as  legitimate  measures  of  self-defense. 
To  these  nine  millions  of  Germans,  or  Germans- 
once-removed,  must  be  added  large  numbers  of 
subjects  of  the  Austrian  Monarchy:  much  less 
unanimously  devoted  to  the  cause  of  the  Central 
Empires,  but  still  a  factor  to  be  reckoned  with. 

And  what  of  the  Americans  who  had  no  actual 
German  or  Austrian  leanings?  Was  there  any 
solidarity  of  feeling  among  them?  None  what 
ever.  A  certain  number,  mostly  among  the 


INTO  THE  WAR  85 

cultivated  classes  in'  the  Eastern  States,  had 
fairly  strong  British  sympathies;  but  tradition 
and  education  had  fostered  in  large  numbers 
of  the  people  a  vague  dislike  for  England; 
while  the  powerful  Irish  element  was  animated 
by  a  by  no  means  vague  antipathy  for  the  Saxon 
oppressors. 

There  was,  no  doubt,  a  good  deal  of  tradi-' 
tional  and  sentimental  sympathy  with  France; 
but  that  was  largely  counterbalanced  by  the  fact 
that  France  was  engaged  in  the  war  as  the  ally 
of  Russian  despotism.  Nor  did  Japan's  par 
ticipation  in  the  Alliance  tend  to  make  its  cause 
more,  popular  in  the  Western  States. 

So  much  for  the  groupings  begotten  of  what 
may  be  called  initial  sympathies  and  antipathies. 
What  now  of  the  fundamental  attitude  of  the 
American  mind  towards  war  in  general  and 
European  war  in  particular? 

Pacifism,  as  a  quasi-religious  doctrine,  was  at 
least  as  strong  in  America  as  anywhere  else  in 
the  world.  It  was  very  active,  and  very  un 
sophisticated.  The  naive  expedition  of  the  Ford 
Peace  Conference  to  Europe  was  a  characteristic 
expression  of  a  by  no  means  negligible  phase 
of  American  opinion.  And  doctrinaire  pacifism, 


86  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

there  as  here,  inclined  its  sectaries  to  refuse  to 
draw  even  the  most  obvious  distinctions  as  to  the 
responsibility  of  the  different  parties  to  the  war. 
All  belligerents,  by  the  very  fact  of  their  bel 
ligerency,  were,  in  the  eyes  of  fanaticism, 
equally  insane  and  equally  criminal.  Fanaticism 
apart,  moreover,  there  was, ,  in  the  American 
people  at  large,  a  wholesonie  and  thoroughly 
well-grounded  detestation  of  the  very  idea  of 
war — a  detestation  which  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  President  Wilson,  as  a  typical  American, 
very  cordially  shared.  They  had  not,  as  a 
people,  even  the  secret  hankering  after  military 
glory  which  lingers,  or  lingered,  in  the  hearts  of 
the  great  European  nations.  War  was  in  their 
eyes  a  last  resource,  justifiable  only  in  self- 
defense,  or,  like  the  Civil  War,  in  defense  of 
some  great  ideal.  Above  all  things,  too,  their 
national  traditions  made  abstention  from  Euro 
pean  etnbroilments  almost  an  article  of  religion. 
The  idea  that  America  should  keep  herself  to 
herself,  and  not  mix  in  the  feuds  of  the  other 
hemisphere,  was  one  of  the  maxims  of  political 
sagacity  bequeathed  to  his  successors  by  the 
Father  of  his  Country ;  and  it  was  a  maxim  that 
entirely  harmonized  with  every  American  in- 

*•>' 


INTO  THE  WAR  87 

stinct;  The  Monroe  Doctrine,  which  the  pre 
scription  of  a  century  seemed  almost  to  have 
incorporated  in  the  Constitution,  was  founded 
on  the  principle  of  non-intervention.  America 
could  not  well  say  "  hands  off  "  to  Europe  with 
out  subscribing  to  a  reciprocal  self-denying  ordi 
nance.  Thus  every  accepted  tenet  of  political 
wisdom '  reinforced  the  inborn  peaceableness  of 
the  national  disposition,  and  rendered  it  doubly 
difficult  to  conceive  that  it  could  possibly  be  the 
duty  of  the  Western  Republic  to  plunge  itself 
into  a  contest  arising  from  the  rancors  arid 
cupidities  of  European  monarchies  and  empires. 

To  all  these  reasons  for  quietude  and  absten 
tion  must  be  added  the  sheer  lack  of  interest  in 
the  war  felt  by  large  sections  of  the  American 
public.  It  was  to  them  an  insensate  and  san-  / 
guinary  spectacle  played  out  on  a  far  distant 
scene — a  spectacle  which  simply  shocked  them, 
and  in  which  they  could  feel  no  personal  con 
cern.  Battles  in  Europe  did  not  seem  to  come 
home  to  them  much  more  directly  than  battles 
in  the  moon.  This  factor  of  sheer  indifference 
was  not  the  least  potent  with  which  President 
Wilson  had  to  lay  his  account. 

And  even  if  the  obstacles  to  intervention  had 


88  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

been  less  formidable — even  if  he  himself  had 
felt  less  strongly  that  war  is  justified  only  when 
every  means  of  avoiding  it  has  been  tried — 
there  was  yet  another  reason  which  impelled 
President  Wilson  to  keep  his  country  out  of  the 
mellay  to  the  last  possible  moment.  It  was 
manifestly  to  the  advantage  of  the  world  that, 
if  it  could  be  done  without  disgrace,  one  great 
Power  should  hold  aloof  from  the  sanguinary 
welter,  should  devote  itself  to  the  mitigation  of 
suffering,  and  should  be  in  a  position  to  mediate 
between  the  combatants,  as  soon  as  the  time 
should  be  ripe  for  such  a  service.  Mr.  Wilson 
did  not  forget  the  part  played  by  Mr.  Roosevelt 
in  bringing  the  Russo-Japanese  war  to  a  close. 
It  was  clearly  incumbent  on  him,  if  it  could  be 
reconciled  with  higher  interests,  to  hold  himself 
in  readiness  for  the  congenial  function  of  the 
peacemaker.  This  was  not  the  least  of  motives 
impelling  him  to  hold  indignation,  however 
righteous,  in  check,  and  make  patience  his 
watchword  even  to  the  eleventh  hour. 

But  if  this  was  the  line  of  conduct  prescribed 
for  him  alike  by  personal  principle  and  by 
official  duty,  it  was  plain  that  his  only  reason 
able  course  was  to  maintain  the  strictest  neu-M 


INTO  THE  WAR  89 

trality  both  in  language  and  in  action.  What 
ever  were  his  personal  sympathies,  to  have  al 
lowed  them  to  appear  in  his  utterances  would 
have  been  both  futile  and  improper.  It  was  his 
business  to  speak,  not  his  own  mind,  but  the 
mind  of  America.  It  was  his  business  to  ex 
press,  as  nearly  as  possible,  the  ideas  common  to 
all  American  minds,  not  to  make  himself  the 
mouthpiece  of  the  partisanship  of  any  one  sec 
tion.  Nay  more — it  was  his  duty  to  urge  mod 
eration  upon  the  more  vehement  partisans  of 
every  color,  and  not,  if  he  could  help  it,  to  let 
the  indiscretion  of  individuals  frustrate  the 
policy  on  which  he  had  deliberately  resolved,  and 
for  the  successful  carrying-through  of  which  he 
was  responsible.  If  these  considerations  be 
borne  in  mind,  the  bitter  criticism  which  some 
of  his  utterances  evoked  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic  will  appear  to  have  been  founded  on 
an  imperfect  apprehension  of  the  elements  of 
an  exceedingly  complex  problem.  One  or  two 
of  the  phrases  he  employed  may  be  open  to 
verbal  objection;  but  the  defect,  if  defect  there 
be,  is  generally  due  to  over  scrupulousness  in 
keeping  within  the  limits  of  the  part  imposed 
upon  him  by  the  situation  and  by  his  office. 


90  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

The  phrase  "  too  proud  to  fight,"  used  a  few 
days  after  the  Lusitania  catastrophe,  was  cer 
tainly  unfortunate.  It  expressed  nothing  of 
great  importance  and  it  invited  misunderstand 
ing.  Its  context  ran  as  follows: 

The  example  of  America  must  be  a  special  example, 
and  must  be  an  example  not  merely  of  peace  because  it 
will  not  fight,  but  because  peace  is  a  healing  and  elevat 
ing  influence  of  the  world,  and  strife  is  not.  There  is 
such  a  thing  as  a  man  being  too  proud  to  fight ;  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  a  nation  being  so  right  that  it  does 
not  need  to  convince  others  by  force  that  it  is  right. 

The  expression  was  casual  and  illustrative, 
a  mere  obiter  dictum;  but  at  such  a  juncture 
even  obiter  dicta  ought  to  be  carefully  weighed 
lest  they  prove  stumbling-blocks  to  understand 
ing.  It  was  a  trifling  literary  lapse,  thrown 
into  wholly  disproportionate  prominence  by  the 
circumstances. 

Another  expression  much  dwelt  upon  by  the 
President's  critics  occurred  in  a  speech  on  the 
League  to  Enforce  Peace,  delivered  on  May 
27th,  1916: 

With  its  [the  war's]  causes  and  objects  we  are  not 
concerned.  The  obscure  fountains  from  which  the  stu- 


INTO  THE  WAR  91 

pendous  flood  has  burst  forth  we  are  not  interested  to 
search  for  or  explore. 


What  is  this  but  an  absolately  obligatory 
declaration  of  neutrality?  So  long  as  America 
was  neutral,  it  was  not  her  business,  as  a  nation, 
to  sit  in  judgment,  to  investigate  the  causes  of 
the  war  or  determine  what  ought  to  be  its  ob 
jects.  The  League  to  Enforce  Peace  was  not 
being  projected  as  a  partisan  organization,  but 
claimed  to  be  equally  beneficent  and  necessary 
whatever  might  be  the  rights  and  wrongs  of  the 
struggle.  The  expression  "  we  are  not  inter 
ested  "  was  perhaps  ill  chosen.  It  suggested 
private  indifference  rather  than  national  impar 
tiality.  But  apart  from  that  the  passage  was 
merely  the  disclaimer  of  biassed  motives  which 
his  position  imposed  on  the  head  of  a  neutral 
state. 

There  is  some  excuse,  however,  for  the  objec 
tion  taken  on  the  side  of  the  Allies  to  both  these 
passages.  On  the  other  hand,  there  seems  to  be 
no  excuse  for  the  outcry  which  greeted  the  fol 
lowing  paragraph  in  the  note  of  December  20th, 
1916,  suggesting  to  the  belligerents  that  the  time 
had  come  for  negotiation: 


92  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

He  [the  President]  takes  the  liberty  of  calling  atten 
tion  to  the  fact  that  the  objects  which  the  statesmen  of 
the  belligerents  on  both  sides  have  in  mind  in  this  war 
are  virtually  the  same,  as  stated  in  general  terms  to 
their  own  people  and  to  the  world.  Each  side  desires 
to  make  the  rights  and  privileges  of  weak  peoples  and 
small  states  as  secure  against  aggression  or  denial  io 
the  future  as  the  rights  and  privileges  of  the  great  and 
powerful  states  now  at  war. 

Surely  the  irony  of  this  passage  ought  to  have 
been  apparent  from  the  first.  It  states  a  literal 
fact,  for  German  professions  "  as  stated  in 
general  terms,"  were  full  of  nobility  and  sym 
pathy  for  the  oppressed.  Had  not  Bethmann- 
Hollweg  expressed  the  willingness  of  Germany 
to  "  place  herself  at  the  head  "  of  a  League  of 
Peace?  Had  not  Germany's  sympathetic  heart 
strings  been  wrung  by  the  atrocious  conduct  of 
the  Allies  towards  Greece  and  other  small  na 
tions?  It  was  of  these  professions  that  the 
President  was  officially  cognizant — what  could 
he  do,  in  a  note  addressed  to  both  the  contending 
parties,  but  take  them  at  their  face  value?  And 
this  he  did  all  the  more  readily,  no  doubt,  be 
cause  the  contrast  between  Germany's  profes 
sions  and  the  flagrant  and  abominable  facts 


INTO  THE  WAR  93 

gave  to  the  very  suavity  of  his  language  a  tinge 
of  the  bitterest  irony.  Here  one  cannot  but 
suggest  that  the  President  has  a  right  to  re 
proach  his  critics  with  a  certain  slowness  of 
apprehension. 

When  we  pass  from  the  consideration  of 
words  to  deeds,  the  strictures  sometimes  passed 
on  the  President's  action  are  seen,  when  all  the 
circumstances  are  considered,  to  have  even  less 
foundation. 

No  one,  surely,  can  suggest  that  America 
should  have  entered  the  war  in  the  autumn  of 
1914,  in  exasperation  at  the  German  treatment 
of  Belgium.  She  could  not  have  prevented  or 
in  any  way  checked  the  crime;  and  it  was  pre 
cisely  by  keeping  out  of  the  war  that  she  was 
able  to  some  extent  to  mitigate  the  lot  of  the 
martyr  country.  Nor  would  it  have  helped  to 
make  the  crime  the  subject  of  an  official  protest. 
This  even  Mr.  Roosevelt  admitted  at  the  time. 
"  Sympathy,"  he  wrote,  "  is  compatible  with 
full  acknowledgment  of  the  unwisdom  of  our 
uttering  a  single  word  of  official  protest  unless 
we  are  prepared  to  make  that  protest  effective; 
and  only  the  clearest  and  most  urgent  na 
tional  duty  would  ever  justify  us  in  deviating 


94  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

from  our  role  of  neutrality  and  non-interference." 
Not  quite  so  clear,  perhaps,  are  the  merits  of 
the  President's  action  in  the  case  of  the  Lusi- 
tania;  but  can  any  one,  looking  back  on  the 
course  of  events,  seriously  maintain  that  Mr. 
Wilson  would  have  done  wisely  in  attempting 
to  rush  his  country  into  war  on  this  issue?  In 
so  doing  he  would  have  obeyed  the  dictates  of 
national  passion,  not  of  national  honor  and  a 
reasoned  regard  to  the  welfare  of  the  world. 
The  war  would  have  been  practically  a  war  of 
revenge,*  undertaken,  in  the  spirit  of  antique 
superstition,  for  the  appeasement  of  the  ghosts 
of  the  American  victims.  To  make  even  the 
murder  of  113  American  citizens  a  reason  for 
war  without  parley  would  have  been  wholly 
opposed  to  the  very  principle  for  which  Amer 
ica  is  fighting  to-day :  the  principle  that  methods 
of  peace  must  be  exhausted  before  arms  are 
brought  into  play.  This  is  the  corner-stone  of 

*  He  could  not  have  said  then,  as  he  said  when  the  time  came  to 
take  up  Germany's  challenge: — "The  choice  we  make  for  ourselves 
must  be  made  with  the  moderation  of  counsel  and  temperateness 
of  judgment  befitting  our  character  and  motives  as  a  nation.  We 
must  put  excited  feeling  away.  Our  motive  will  not  be  revenge  or 
the  victorious  assertion  of  the  physical  might  of  the  nation,  but 
only  a  vindication  of  right,  of  human  right,  of  which  we  are  only  a 
single  champion. 


INTO  THE  WAR  95 

the  new  world-order  for  which  the  Allies  are 
contending.  Are  we  to  blame  President  Wilson 
because  he  did  not  suffer  even  the  horror  en 
gendered  by  an  unexampled  atrocity  to  render 
him  oblivious  of  the  first  article  in  his,  and  our, 
creed? 

A  headlong  plunge  into  war  would  not  have 
brought  the  Lusitania  victims  to  life  again, 
and  it  would  have  put  an  end  to  the  last  chance 
of  inducing  Germany  to  obey  the  dictates  of 
international  law  and  humanity  in  her  conduct 
of  the  war  at  sea.  The  chance  of  doing  so 
might  not  at  best  be  great,  but  President  Wilson 
had  not  the  right  to  leave  it  untested.  He  had 
to  deal  in  negotiation  with  an  utterly  insincere, 
evasive  and  cynical  adversary;  but  he  did  actu 
ally  obtain  a  qualified  confession  of  wrong 
doing  in  the  case  of  the  Lusitania,  a  disavowal 
of  the  Arabic  outrage,  and  a  promise  that  the 
rules  of  humanity  should  not  be  wholly  set  at 
defiance.  He  himself,  in  his  Address  to  Con 
gress  of  April  2nd,  1917,  summed  up  the  prac 
tical  result  of  his  efforts.  "  The  Imperial  Gov 
ernment,"  he  said,  "  had  somewhat  restrained 
the  commanders  of  its  under-sea  craft  in  con 
formity  with  its  promise,"  given  in  April,  1916, 


96  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

"  that  passenger  boats  should  not  be  sunk,  and 
due  warning  should  be  given  to  all  other  ves 
sels,"  so  that  their  crews  might  have  at  least 
a  fair  chance  of  saving  their  lives.  '  The  pre 
cautions  were  meager  and  haphazard  enough,  as 
was  proved  in  distressing  instance  after  instance 
in  the  progress  of  the  cruel  and  unmanly  busi 
ness,  but  a  certain  degree  of  restraint  was  ob 
served."  The  attempt,  by  methods  of  reason,  to 
make  the  German  Government  honest  and  hu 
mane  was  in  the  long  run  a  hopeless  one;  but 
that  could  only  be  ascertained  by  experiment. 
In  a  controversy  in  which  the  bad  faith  of  one  of 
the  parties  is  impudently  displayed,  patience  in 
the  other  party  cannot  but  have  an  air  of  pusil 
lanimity.  Again  and  again  President  Wilson 
was  urged  by  onlookers,  both  at  home  and 
abroad,  to  "  Call  him  a  liar  and  make  it  a  fight," 
and  was  taunted  with  spiritlessness  and  irresolu 
tion  when  he  quietly  ignored  the  advice.  Never, 
perhaps,  was  his  strength  of  character  more 
clearly  shown  than  in  the  calmness  with  which 
he  pursued  his  well-considered  course,  unmoved 
by  impatient  and  uncomprehending  criticism. 
However  exasperating  might  be  the  recurrent 
instances  of  German  effrontery,  he  knew  that 


INTO  THE  WAR  97 

he  had  not  a  compulsive  case  to  lay  before  the 
mass  of  the  American  people;  and  he  felt  that 
to  be  the  one  indispensable  condition  of  effective 
intervention. 

As  1916  wore  on,  moreover,  and  the  Presi 
dential  election  drew  nearer,  he  naturally  be 
came  more  and  more  unwilling  to  commit  the 
country,  without  absolute  necessity,  to  a  vast 
enterprise  which  he  himself  might  be  unable  to 
carry  through.  It  ought  clearly  to  be  a  point 
of  honor  in  an  outgoing  official  to  take  no 
momentous  and  irrevocable  step  which  may  im 
pose  upon  his  successor  a  responsibility  which 
he  may  not  desire,  and  to  which,  indeed,  he  may 
be  unequal. 

But  in  the  meantime,  as  no  one  knew  better 
than  President  Wilson,  events  were  educating 
the  country  and  proving  that  the  aloofness  on 
which  Washington  and  Monroe  had  based  their 
conception  of  a  national  policy  was  in  very  deed 
a  thing  of  the  past.  Germany  kindly  under 
took  the  task  of  arousing  the  American  people 
to  a  sense  of  danger  and  a  sense  of  duty.  No 
one  can  deny  her  the  praise  of  being  a  highly 
efficient  educator  in  the  dread  and  detestation 
of  Germanism.  The  duplicity  of  her  profes- 


/G-c' 

98  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

sions,  no  less  than  the  ruffianism  of  her  acts, 

I 

aroused  an  ever  growing  resentment,  which  was 
not  allayed  by  the  tactless  importunacy  of  her 
propaganda.  Her  accredited  diplomatic  repre-  y, 
sentatives  were  found  to  be  carrying  on  active 
warfare  against  American  industry,  and  intrigu 
ing  to  involve  the  United  States  in  domestic 
and  foreign  complications.  These  illicit  and 
underground  courses  led  to  the  loss  of  many 
American  lives  and  to  great  destruction  of  prop 
erty.  One  by  one  the  agents  of  the  Central 
Empires  outstayed  their  welcome  and  were  po 
litely  required  to  withdraw.  The  intolerable 
\.  conduct  of  the  official  propagandist,  Dernburg, 
»  after  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania,  led  to  his 
prompt  elimination;  and  he  was  followed  by 
Boy-Ed,  the  German  naval  attache,  Von  Papen, 
\the  military  attache,  and  Dr.  Dumba,  the  Aus 
trian  Ambassador.  At  the  same  time  events  on 
the  Mexican  frontier  were  arousing  the  country 
to  a  sense  of  its  inability  to  make  its  full 
strength,  or  a  tenth  part  of  its  full  strength,  felt 
in  any  crisis  calling  for  military  action.  A  great 
"  preparedness  "  campaign,  in  which  ^President 
Wilson  took  a  prominent  part,  was  a  result  of 
t  |M  all  these  converging  influences,  and  accustomed 


INTO  THE  WAR  99 

people  to  the  idea  that  neither  the  Atlantic  nor 
the  Pacific  now  afforded  them  the  old  security 
from  aggression.  They  might  be  called  upon  at 
any  moment  to  defend  their  property  or  to  vin 
dicate  their  honor.  Whether  they  liked  it  or 
not,  they  were  members  of  the  commonweal  of 
nations,  and  must  be  prepared  to  play  a  part 
in  world-politics  worthy  of  their  traditions  and 
their  ideals.  If  need  be,  they  must  step  in  to 
save  the  nascent  world-democracy  from  falling 
a  victim  to  an  autocratic-militarist  coup  d'etat. 
In  November,  1916,  after  a  neck-and-neck 
race  against  a  strong  competitor,  Charles  Evans 
Hughes,  ex-Governor  of  New  York,  President 
Wilson  was  elected  to  a  second  term  of  office. 
His  position  was  thus  enormously  strengthened. 
In  1912,  the  international  sky,  if  not  unclouded, 
had  threatened  no  such  tornado  as  that  which 
had  burst  upon  the  world.  He  had  been  elected 
on  purely  domestic  issues,  and  had  no  direct 
mandate  to  deal  with  the  momentous  question 
of  peace  or  war.  Now  he  held  the  mandate. 
The  country  knew  what  to  expect  of  him,  and 
the  country  chose  him.  He  had  been  patient, — 
indeed  many  thousands  of  those  who  voted 
against  him  had  doubtless  done  so  because  they 


100  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

thought  he  had  been  too  patient-/out  he  had 
shown  unmistakably  that  his  patience  was  not 
without  limits.  He  had  said,  when  the  policy 
of  submarine  piracy  had  been  first  announced, 
that  if  the  lives  of  American  citizens  were  lost, 
"  the  United  States  would  be  constrained  to 
hold  the  Imperial  Government  of  Germany  to 
strict  accountability  " ;  and  though  he  seemed  to 
have  put  a  lax  interpretation  on  that  term,  the 
principle  he  had  laid  down  was  clear,  and  any 
one  who  voted  for  him  must  have  known  that 
a  time  might  come  when  the  only  possible 
method  of  calling  Germany  to  account  would  be 
the  method  of  arms.  As  time  went  on,  more 
over,  Mr.  Wilson  had  been  more  and  more  em 
phatic  in  his  warnings  to  his  fellow-countrymen 
that  their  position  was  no  longer  one  of  unas 
sailable  security,  and  that  they  might  at  any 
moment  find  it  necessary  to  make  great  sacrifices 
in  order  to  avert  still  greater  dangers  which 
threatened  not  only  their  own  country,  but  the 
democratic  idea  throughout  the  world.!  He  had 
said: 

America  was  born  into  the  world  to  do  mankind 
service,  and  no  man  is  an  American  in  whom  the  desire 
to  do  mankind  service  does  not  take  precedence  over 


INTO  THE  WAR  101 

the  desire  to  serve  himself.  If  I  believed  that  the 
might  of  America  was  any  threat  to  any  free  man  in 
the  world,  I  would  wish  America  to  be  weak.  But  I 
believe  the  might  of  America  is  the  might  of  righteous 
purpose  and  of  a  sincere  love  for  the  freedom  of  man 
kind. 

And  again  he  had  said : 

There  are  two  things  which  practically  everybody 
who  comes  to  the  Executive  office  at  Washington  tells 
me.  They  tell  me,  "  The  people  are  counting  upon  you 
to  keep  us  out  of  this  war,"  and  in  the  next  breath 
what  do  they  tell  me :  "  People  are  equally  counting 
upon  you  to  maintain  the  honor  of  the  United  States." 
Have  you  reflected  that  a  time  might  come  when  I 
could  not  do  both?  And  have  you  made  yourself  ready 
to  stand  behind  your  Government  for  the  maintenance 
of  the  honor  of  the  country,  as  well  as  for  the  peace 
of  the  country? 

The  man  who  had  held  this  language,  and 
who  had  had  his  tenure  of  power  renewed  by 
the  people  to  whom  it  was  addressed,  could  not 
doubt  that  his  countrymen  had  full  confidence 
in  his  judgment  as  to  the  time  to  strike  and  the 
time  to  refrain  from  striking.' 

When  at  last,  at  the  end  of  January,  I0117 
Germany  decided  to  stake  everything  upon  the 


102  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

chance  of  bringing  the  Allies  to  their  knees  by 
a  campaign  of  "  unrestricted  "  maritime  murder, 
Mr.  Wilson  saw  that  the  time  for  patience  was 
past.  Without  a  moment's  hesitation,  he  sev 
ered  diplomatic  relations  with  Berlin.  He  still 
hoped,  he  tells  us,  that  the  United  States  need 
not  go  beyond  "  armed  neutrality  "  —that  is  to 
say,  the  defensive  armament  of  merchant  ship 
ping.  But  that  hope  proved  vain  when  Ger 
many  intimated  that  "  the  armed  guards  placed 
on  merchant  ships  would  be  treated  as  beyond 
the  pale  of  the  law  and  dealt  with  as  pirates." 
Meanwhile  the  overthrow  of  the  Russian  autoc 
racy  had  removed  the  one  final  objection  felt 
by  many  Americans  to  making  common  cause 
with  the  Allies.  [  On  April  2nd,  the  President 
summoned  an  Extraordinary  Session  of  Con 
gress,  and,  in  an  address  which  will  be  remem 
bered  in  history,  recommended  that  war  should 
be  declared  against  Germany. 

"  The  world-war,"  he  said,  "  was  determined  upon  as 
wars  used  to  be  determined  upon  in  the  old  unhappy 
days,  when  peoples  were  nowhere  consulted  by  their 
rulers,  and  wars  were  provoked  and  waged  in  the  inter 
est  of  dynasties,  or  little  groups  of  ambitious  men,  who 
were  accustomed  to  use  their  fellow-men  as  pawns  and 


INTO  THE  WAR  103 

tools.  Self -governed  nations  do  not  fill  their  neighbor 
States  with  spies,  or  set  in  course  an  intrigue  to  bring 
about  some  critical  posture  of  affairs  which  would  give 
them  an  opportunity  to  strike  and  make  a  conquest. 
Such  designs  can  be  successfully  worked  only  under 
cover,  where  no  one  has  a  right  to  ask  questions.  Cun 
ningly-contrived  plans  of  deception  or  impression,  car 
ried,  it  may  be,  from  generation  to  generation,  can  be 
worked  out  and  kept  from  light  only  within  the  privacy 
of  Courts,  or  behind  the  carefully-guarded  confidences 
of  a  narrow  privileged  class.  They  are  happily  impos 
sible  where  public  opinion  commands  and  insists  upon 
full  information  concerning  all  the  nation's  affairs. 
A  steadfast  concert  for  peace  can  never  be  maintained 
except  by  the  partnership  of  democratic  nations.  No 
autocratic  Government  could  be  trusted  to  keep  faith 
within  it  or  observe  its  covenants. 

"  It  is,  unhappily,  not  a  matter  of  conjecture,  but 
of  fact,  proved  in  our  courts  of  justice,  that  intrigues 
which  more  than  once  came  perilously  near  disturbing 
the  peace  and  dislocating  the  industries  of  the  country 
have  been  carried  on  at  the  instigation,  with  the  sup 
port,  and  even  under  the  personal  direction,  of  official 
agents  of  the  Imperial  Government  accredited  to  the 
Government  of  the  United  States.  Even  in  checking 
these  things  and  trying  to  extirpate  them,  we  have 
sought  to  put  the  most  generous  interpretation  possible 
upon  them,  because  we  knew  that  their  source  lay  not 
in  any  hostile  feeling  or  purpose  of  the  German  people 
towards  us  (who  were,  no  doubt,  as  ignorant  of  them 


104  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

as  ourselves),  but  only  in  selfish  designs  of  a  Govern 
ment  that  did  what  it  pleased,  and  told  its  people 
nothing.  But  they  played  their  part  in  serving  to 
convince  us  at  last  that  that  Government  entertains 
no  real  friendship  for  us,  and  means  to  act  against 
our  peace  and  security  at  its  convenience. 

"  We  are  accepting  this  challenge  of  hostile  purpose 
because  we  know  that  in  such  a  Government,  following 
such  methods,  we  can  never  have  a  friend,  and  that  in 
the  presence  of  its  organized  power,  always  lying  in 
wait  to  accomplish  we  know  not  what  purpose,  there 
can  be  no  assured  security  for  the  democratic  govern 
ments  of  the  world.  We  are  about  to  accept  the  gage 
of  battle  with  this  natural  foe  to  liberty,  and  we  shall, 
if  necessary,  spend  the  whole  force  of  the  nation  to 
check  and  nullify  its  pretensions  and  its  power.  We  are 
glad,  now  that  we  see  facts  with  no  veil  of  false  pretense 
about  them,  to  fight  thus  for  the  ultimate  peace  of  the 
world,  for  the  liberation  of  its  peoples — the  German 
peoples  included — the  rights  of  nations,  great  and 
small,  and  the  privilege  of  men  everywhere  to  choose 
their  way  of  life  and  obedience.  The  world  must  be 
made  safe  for  democracy.  Its  peace  must  be  planted 
upon  trusted  foundations  of  political  liberty. 

"  It  is  a  fearful  thing  to  lead  this  great  and  peaceful 
people  into  war,  into  the  most  terrible  and  disastrous 
of  all  wars.  Civilization  itself  seems  to  be  in  the  bal 
ance,  but  right  is  more  precious  than  peace,  and  we 
shall  fight  for  the  things  which  we  have  always  carried 
nearest  our  hearts,  for  democracy,  for  the  right  of 


INTO  THE  WAR  105 

those  who  submit  to  authority  to  have  a  voice  in  their 
own  government,  for  the  rights  and  liberties  of  small 
nations,  for  the  universal  dominion  of  right  by  such 
a  concert  of  free  peoples  as  will  bring  peace  and  safety 
to  all  nations,  and  make  the  world  itself  at  last  free.  To 
such  a  task  we  can  dedicate  our  lives,  our  fortunes, 
everything  we  are,  everything  we  have,  with  the  pride 
of  those  who  know  the  day  has  come  when  America 
is  privileged  to  spend  her  blood  and  might  for  the 
principles  that  gave  her  birth,  and  the  happiness  and 
peace  which  she  has  treasured.  God  helping  her,  she 
can  do  no  other." 

Never  did  nation  go  to  war  from  purer  mo 
tives  of  world-citizenship;  never  were  a  nation's 
motives  more  nobly  worded  than  in  this  great 
utterance. 

There  are  people  who  think  that  they  have 
condemned,  or  at  all  events  belittled,  Mr.  Wil 
son's  conduct  when  they  say  that  he  kept  his 
country  out  of  the  war  to  the  last  possible  mo 
ment,  and  only  brought  her  in  when  American 
interests  were  seriously  attacked  by  the  unre 
stricted  submarine  campaign.  They  forget  that 
the  President  of  the  United  States  is  neither  an 
autocrat  nor  a  knight-errant,  and  that  it  would 
be  worse  than  foolish  for  him  to  attempt  to  play 
either  part.  No  doubt  it  would  have  been  a  fine 


106  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

melodramatic  gesture  to  have  thrown  down  the 
gage  of  battle  on  behalf  of  martyred  Belgium, 
and  declared  America  the  champion  of  good- 
faith  and  of  humanity  whenever  or  wherever 
they  are  outraged.  But  even  if  he  had  had  the 
right  to  make  that  gesture,  it  would  in  all 
probability  have  had  no  practical  effect,  for  the 
country  would  not  have  stood  solidly  behind  it. 
So  far  was  it  from  being  of  one  mind  that  the 
President  had  enough  to  do  to  resist  the  efforts 
of  German  partisans  to  force  him  into  the  non- 
neutral  course  of  forbidding  the  export  of  muni 
tions,  because  the  Allies  alone  were  in  a  position 
to  avail  themselves  of  this  source  of  supply. 
Had  he  been  a  weak  or  pusillanimous  man,  or 
even  a  fanatical  peace-lover,  he  would  have 
found  plenty  of  support  in  making  timely  con 
cessions  to  German  arrogance  and  brutality,  and 
keeping  out  of  the  war  altogether.  ?His  atti 
tude,  though  patient,  was  always  firm)— so  much 
so  as  to  lose  him  the  co-operation  of  his  Secre 
tary  of  State,  Mr.  Bryan.  When  in  1916  there 
was  an  agitation  to  keep  out  of  trouble  with 
Germany  by  forbidding  American  citizens  to 
sail  on  the  defensively-armed  liners  of  the  Allies, 
Mr.  Wilson  crushed  it  with  a  firm  hand.  He 


INTO  THE  WAR  107 

wrote  to  Senator  Stone,  Chairman  of  the  For 
eign  Relations  Committee  of  the  Senate: 

To  forbid  our  people  to  exercise  their  rights  for  fear 
we  might  be  called  upon  to  vindicate  them  would  be 
a  deep  humiliation  indeed.  It  would  be  an  implicit, 
all  but  explicit,  acquiescence  in  the  violation  of  the 
rights  of  mankind  everywhere,  and  of  whatever  nation 
or  allegiance. 

He  would  not  even  suffer  the  resolution  to 
be  quietly  shelved,  but  insisted  that  it  should  be 
brought  before  Congress  and  voted  on.  Every 
where  his  conduct  was  that  of  a  strong,  straight 
forward  man — strong  enough  to  pursue  what  he 
conceived  to  be  the  path  of  duty,  even  when  he 
knew  that  in  doing  so  he  must  incur  grave  mis 
understanding  and  bitter  misrepresentation. 

Nor  is  it  true  that  he  brought  America  into 
the  war  because  her  material  "  interests  "  were 
threatened.  They  were,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in 
little  more  danger  than  they  had  been  ever  since 
early  in  1915.  At  all  events,  any  "material" 
loss  that  might  have  been  caused  by  unrestricted 
piracy  was  infinitesimal  in  comparison  with  the 
inevitable  costs  of  a  war  in  which  America,  as 
he  declared  from  the  outset,  sought  no  conquests 


108  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

and  no  indemnities.  He  carried  his  country  into 
the  war  because  Germany  had  thrown  to  the 
winds  that  last  semblance  of  regard  for  interna 
tional  law  or  humanity,  and  because  he  saw,  and 
his  countrymen  saw,  that  a  world  dominated  by 
the  spirit  of  German  autocracy  was  an  impossi 
ble  world  for  a  self-respecting  and  self-govern 
ing  people  to  live  in.  *  Until  it  was  absolutely 
clear  that  the  very  existence  of  democracy  was 
at  stake,  he  did  not  think  that  he  had  the  right, 
even  if  he  had  had  the  power,  to  involve  his 
country  in  the  gigantic  evils  of  war.  He  had 
borne  injury  and  covert  insult  while  that  seemed 
the  lesser  of  two  evils;  but  when  open  insult  to 
the  United  States  was  combined  with  a  no  less 
cynical  disavowal  of  all  restraint  in  the  pursuit 
of  the  interests  of  Germany's  ruling  caste,  he 
saw  that  with  that  caste  no  free  man  or  free 
nation  could  live  at  peace.  He  declared  for 
war,  and  the  country  rose  at  his  summons.  He 
had  throughout  played  the  part  of  a  resolute, 
far-seeing,  plain-speaking,  democratic  states 
man;  in  the  final  moment  of  decision  he  proved 
himself  a  great  leader  of  men. 


VIII 

PEACE  AND  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

IT  was  a  frequent,  perhaps  a  constant,  practice 
among  the  Greeks,  after  a  victory,  to  review  the 
battle  and  decide  who  had  borne  himself  the 
most  valiantly.  But,  if  one  may  say  so  without 
irreverence,  it  was  a  very  foolish  practice.  The 
decision  could  seldom  be  a  just  one,  and  it  must 
always  have  led  to  futile  and  unnecessary  heart 
burnings.  It  would  ill  become  the  Allies,  who 
have  won  not  only  the  greatest,  but  the  noblest, 
victory  the  world  ever  saw,  to  decline  into  un 
generous  bickerings  over  their  respective  con 
tributions  to  the  glorious  result.  It  is  especially 
impossible  to  find  any  common  measure  to  apply 
to  those  who  bore  the  burden  and  heat  of  the 
day  and  those  who  intervened  at  a  late,  though 
decisive,  moment.  All  that  can  or  that  need  be 
said  is  that  the  magnificent  effort  of  America, 
inspired  and  guided  by  President  Wilson,  was 

109 


110  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

of  literally  incalculable  value  to  the  cause  of 
freedom  and  humanity. 

And  now  the  great  President,  among  so  many 
other  and  minor  tasks,  can  devote  himself  to 
what  he  has  all  along  proclaimed  as  his  ultimate 
ideal — that  of  securing  the  initiation  of  a  Society 
of  States,  whereby  collective  reason  shall  be  sub 
stituted  for  individual  violence  as  the  arbiter  in 
all  disputes  between  civilized  peoples.  The  idea 
is  no  new  one.  Many  wise  men  of  old — includ 
ing  Erasmus,  Hugo  Grotius,  the  Due  de  Sully, 
William  Penn  and  Immanuel  Kant — have  con 
ceived  and  propounded  it.  But  the  time  was  not 
ripe:  the  world  was  too  large  and  too  incom 
pletely  interrelated.  It  had  to  acquire  the  com 
plex  and  highly  sensitive  nervous  system  of  to 
day  before  it  could  develop  a  collective  brain. 
Now  the  war,  which  has  wrought  so  many  mira 
cles,  can  place  to  its  credit  this  greatest  of  all: 
it  has  transmuted  the  Utopian  dream  of  the  past 
into  the  most  pressing  and  practical  necessity 
of  the  future.  Even  the  Germans  realized  that 
the  devilish  ingenuities  of  science,  combined  with 
the  development  of  means  of  communication, 
had  led  to  such  an  extravagant  and  illimitable 
increase  in  the  potentialities  of  destruction,  that 


PEACE  AND  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS     111 


conditions  of  the  past  half-century  were 
to  continue  for  another  fifty  years,  civilization 
must  inevitably  stagger  to  ruin  and  collapse 
under  the  sheer  weight  of  armaments  and  mili 
tary  preparations  of  every  sort.  There  is  no 
reason  to  doubt  that  the  aspirations  towards 
world-peace,  freely  expressed  by  leading  men  in 
Germany  during  the  last  years  of  the  war,  were 
sincere  enough.  If  Germany  had  won,  she 
would  have  made  her  own  League  of  Nations— 
but  it  would  have  been  a  league  of  forcibly  dis 
armed  nations  under  the  heel  of  "  Mitteleuropa," 
armed  to  the  teeth.  Fate  has  decided  for  a 
League  of  Free  Peoples;  and  many  of  us  see 
in  President  Wilson  our  chiefest  guarantee  for 
its  wise  and  successful  organization. 

He  has  not  given  his  adhesion  to  any  one  of 
the  dozen  or  more  cut-and-dried  schemes  that 
are  before  the  world.  Whether  he  has  one  "  up 
his  sleeve  "  remains  to  be  seen.  He  has  em 
phatically  stated  the  view  that  the  League  of 
Nations  must  be  founded  at  the  Peace  Confer 
ence,  neither  sooner  nor  later.  This  may  not 
mean,  however,  that  it  must  actually  have  its 
constitution  sanctioned  and  its  mechanism  de 
vised  in  every  detail.  What  is  essential  is  that 


112  THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

its  principle  should  be  accepted,  its  existence 
assured,  and  some  sort  of  provisional  organiza 
tion  set  on  foot.  That  the  Conference  should 
complete  its  work  without  knowing  whether  the 
League  is  to  exist  or  not  is  simply  unthinkable. 
Upon  the  answer  to  that  question  must  depend 
all  the  most  important  details  of  the  settlement. 
Are  frontiers  to  be  human — that  is,  determined 
by  race,  language,  national  feeling,  economic 
convenience — or  are  they  to  be  "strategic"? 
Are  the  nations  to  banish  cupidity  and  fear,  and 
enter  into  a  pact  of  mutual  insurance  against  a 
renewal  of  the  horrors  from  which  they  have 
just  emerged?  Or  are  they  simply  to  "  ma 
neuver  for  position  "  in  view  of  the  next  war? 
Is -the  peace  to  be  a  peace,  or  only  a  truce? 
Until  that  crucial  point  is  decided,  the  Confer 
ence  will  be  working  in  the  dark.  Strange  as 
it  may  seem,  there  are  forces  at  work  to  secure 
a  decision  in  the  wrong,  the  retrograde,  sense. 
It  is  a  priceless  reassurance  to  know  that  almost 
the  whole  weight  of  America  is  in  the  opposite 
scale.  For  what  other  purpose  did  she  enter 
the  Avar  but  to  secure  the  world-peace  of 
democracy? 

The  war  has  left  behind  it  innumerable  sor- 


PEACE  AND  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS      113 

rows  that  time  itself  can  never  heal.  Even  the 
exultation  of  victory  is  tinged  with  pain  at  the 
thought  that  the  people  who  have  brought  on 
themselves — and  more  than  merited — so  dire  a 
disaster,  are  the  inheritors  of  so  noble  a  birth 
right,  the  countrymen  of  Goethe  and  Schiller, 
of  Bach  and  Beethoven.  But  to  us,  in  Eng 
land,  the  war  has  brought  one  inestimable  and 
imperishable  joy,  in  the  generous  comradeship 
of  a  reconciled  America.  Which  of  us  does  not 
echo  the  words  of  Mr.  Winston  Churchill  at  the 
historic  4th  of  July  meeting  at  Westminster: 

Deep  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  of  these  islands, 
in  the  hearts  of  those,  who,  in  the  language  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  are  styled  "  our  British 
brethren,"  lay  the  desire  to  be  truly  reconciled  before 
all  men  and  all  history  with  their  kindred  across  the 
Atlantic  Ocean,  to  blot  out  the  reproaches  and  redeem 
the  blunders  of  a  bygone  age,  to  dwell  once  more  in 
spirit  with  them,  to  stand  once  more  in  battle  at  their 
side,  to  create  once  more  a  union  of  hearts,  to  write 
once  more  a  history  in  common.  That  was  our  hearts' 
desire.  It  seemed  utterly  unattainable,  but  it  has  come 
to  pass.  However  long,  however  cruel  the  struggle 
.  .  .  that  complete  reconciliation  will  make  amends 
for  all.  That  is  the  reward  of  Britain;  that  is  the 
lion's  share. 


THE  PEACE-PRESIDENT 

To  the  subject  of  this  brief  memoir  a  great 
part  of  the  miracle  is  due.  Had  a  pedantic  or 
a  pusillanimous  President  sat  in  Woodrow  Wil 
son's  seat,  it  might  never  have  been  achieved. 
We  owe  much  to  the  clumsy  intrigues  and 
flagrant  crimes  of  Germany;  but  that  is  the  sort 
of  debt  that  is  paid  in  contempt,  not  in  grati 
tude.  So  far  as  any  one  man  can  be  called  the 
author  of  the  great  reconcilement,  it  is  beyond 
all  doubt  the  President  who  has  been  so  stead 
fastly  and  so  magnanimously  faithful  to  the 
great  traditions  of  his  race. 


APPENDIX 

THE  FOURTEEN  POINTS 

PRESIDENT  WILSON,  in  his  address  to  Congress, 
following  Mr.  Lloyd  George's  definition  of  Brit 
ish  War  Aims  of  January  5,  said  on  January  8, 
1918: 

The  programme  of  the  world's  peace  is  our  pro 
gramme,  and  that  programme,  the  only  possible  pro 
gramme  as  we  see  it,  is  this : 

1.  Open  covenants  of  peace,  openly  arrived  at,  after 
which   there   shall  be  no  private  international  under 
standings   of  any  kind,  but  diplomacy   shall  proceed 
always  frankly  and  in  the  public  view. 

2.  Absolute   freedom   of  navigation  upon  the  seas, 
outside  territorial  waters,  alike  in  peace  and  in  war, 
except  as  the  seas  may  be  closed  in  whole  or  in  part  by 
international   action   for  the  enforcement   of  interna 
tional  covenants. 

3.  The  removal,  as  far  as  possible,  of  all  economic 
barriers,  and  the  establishment  of  an  equality  of  trade 
conditions    among   all   the   nations    consenting   to   the 
peace  and  associating  themselves  for  its  maintenance. 

4.  Adequate  guarantees  given  and  taken  that  na- 

115 


116  APPENDIX 

tional  armaments  will  be  reduced  to  the  lowest  point 
consistent  with  domestic  safety. 

5.  A    free,    open-minded,    and    absolutely    impartial 
adjustment  of  all  colonial  claims,  based  upon  a  strict 
observance  of  the  principle  that  in  determining  all  such 
questions  of  sovereignty  the  interests  of  the  populations 
concerned  must  have  equal  weight  with  the  equitable 
claims  of  the  government  whose  title  is  to  be  determined. 

6.  The  evacuation  of  all  Russian  territory,  and  such 
a  settlement  of  all  questions  affecting  Russia  as  will 
secure  the  best   and   freest   cooperation   of   the   other 
nations  of  the  world  in  obtaining  for  her  an  unham 
pered  and  unembarrassed  opportunity  for  the  independ 
ent   determination    of   her   own   political    development 
and  national  policy,  and  assure  her  of  a  sincere  welcome 
into  the  society  of  free  nations  under  institutions  of 
her  own  choosing ;  and,  more  than  a  welcome,  assistance 
also  of  every  kind  that  she  may  need  and  may  herself 
desire. 

7.  Belgium,    the   whole   world   will    agree,   must   be 
evacuated  and  restored,  without  any  attempt  to  limit 
the  sovereignty  which  she  enjoys  in  common  with  all 
other  free  nations. 

8.  All   French   territory   should  be   freed,   and   the 
invaded  portions  restored,  and  the  wrong  done  to  France 
by  Prussia  in  1871  in  the  matter  of  Alsace-Lorraine, 
which  has  unsettled  the  peace  of  the  world  for  nearly 
fifty  years,  should  be  righted,  in  order  that  peace  may 
once  more  be  made  secure  in  the  interest  of  all. 

9.  A  readjustment  of  the  frontiers  of  Italy  should 


APPENDIX  117 

be  effected  along  clearly  recognizable  lines  of  nation 
ality. 

10.  The  peoples  of  Austria-Hungary,  whose  place 
among  the  nations  we  wish  to  see  safeguarded  and  as 
sured,   should  be   accorded  the  freest  opportunity  of 
autonomous  development. 

11.  Rumania,    Serbia,    and   Montenegro    should   be 
evacuated,    occupied    territories    restored,    Serbia    ac 
corded  free  and  secure  access  to  the  sea,  and  the  rela 
tions  of  the  several  Balkan  States  to  one  another  deter 
mined  by  friendly  counsel  along  historically  established 
lines  of  allegiance  and  nationality,   and  international 
guarantees  of  the  political  and  economic  independence 
and  territorial  integrity  of  the  several  Balkan  States 
should  be  entered  into. 

12.  The  Turkish  portions  of  the  present  Ottoman 
Empire  should  be  assured  a  secure  sovereignty,  but  the 
other  nationalities  which  are  now  under  Turkish  rule 
should  be  assured  an  undoubted  security  of  life  and  an 
absolutely  unmolested  opportunity  of  autonomous  de 
velopment;  and  the  Dardanelles  should  be  permanently 
opened  as  a  free  passage  to  the  ships  and  commerce  of 
all  nations  under  international  guarantees. 

13.  An  independent  Polish  State  should  be  erected, 
which  should  include  the  territories  inhabited  by  indis 
putably  Polish  populations,  which  should  be  secured  a 
free  and  secure  access  to  the  sea,  and  whose  political 
and   economic   independence    and   territorial   integrity 
should  be  guaranteed  by  international  covenant. 

14.  A  general  association  of  nations  must  be  formed 


118  APPENDIX 

under  specific  covenants  for  the  purpose  of  affording 
mutual  guarantees  of  political  independence  and  terri 
torial  integrity  to  great  and  small  States  alike. 

An  evident  principle  runs  through  the  whole  pro 
gramme  I  have  outlined.  It  is  the  principle  of  justice 
to  all  peoples  and  nationalities,  and  their  right  to  live 
on  equal  terms  of  liberty  and  safety  with  one  another, 
whether  they  be  strong  or  weak.  Unless  this  principle 
be  made  its  foundation,  no  part  of  the  structure  of 
international  justice  can  stand.  The  people  of  the 
United  States  could  act  upon  no  other  principle,  and  to 
the  vindication  of  this  principle  they  are  ready  to  de 
vote  their  lives,  their  honor,  and  everything  that  they 
possess. 

The  moral  climax  of  this,  the  culminating  and  final 
war  for  human  liberty,  has  come,  and  they  are  ready  to 
put  their  own  strength,  their  own  highest  purpose, 
their  own  integrity  and  devotion,  to  the  test. 


THE  FOUR  GREAT  OBJECTS 

President  Wilson,  again  on  July  4,  1918,  de 
fined  the  issue  and  the  aim  of  the  war  with  a 
force  and  a  conviction  that  clear  the  air  of  all 
doubt  and  give  precision  to  the  aim  of  diplo 
matic  endeavor  as  well  as  to  the  armies  and 
navies  and  the  peoples  behind  them. 

"  There  can  be  but  one  issue,"  declared  Presi- 


APPENDIX  119 

dent   Wilson   at   Washington's    Tomb,   Mount 
Vernon,  on  Independence  Day,  1918: 

The  settlement  must  be  final.  There  can  be  no  com 
promise.  No  half-way  decision  would  be  tolerable.  No 
half-way  decision  is  conceivable. 

These  are  the  ends  for  which  the  associated  peoples 
of  the  world  are  fighting,  and  which  must  be  conceded 
them  before  there  can  be  peace : — 

First,  the  destruction  of  every  arbitrary  power  any 
where  that  can  separately,  secretly  and  of  its  single 
choice  disturb  the  peace  of  the  world,  or,  if  it  cannot 
be  presently  destroyed,  at  the  least  its  reduction  to 
virtual  impotence. 

Second,  the  settlement  of  every  question,  whether  of 
territory  or  sovereignty,  of  economic  arrangement  or 
of  political  relationship,  upon  the  basis  of  the  free 
acceptance  of  that  settlement  by  the  people  immediately 
concerned,  and  not  upon  the  basis  of  the  material  in 
terest  or  advantage  of  any  other  nation  or  people  which 
may  desire  a  different  settlement  for  the  sake  of  its  own 
exterior  influence  or  mastery. 

Third,  the  consent  of  all  nations  to  be  governed  in 
their  conduct  towards  each  other  by  the  same  principles 
of  honor  and  of  respect  for  the  common  law  of  civilized 
society  that  govern  the  individual  citizens  of  all  modern 
States  and  in  their  relations  with  one  another,  to  the 
end  that  all  promises  and  covenants  may  be  sacredly 
observed,  no  private  plots  or  conspiracies  hatched,  no 
selfish  injuries  wrought  with  impunity,  and  a  mutual 


120  APPENDIX 

trust  established  upon  the  handsome  foundation  of  a 
mutual  respect  for  right. 

Fourth,  the  establishment  of  an  organization  of  peace 
which  shall  make  it  certain  that  the  combined  power  of 
free  nations  will  check  every  invasion  of  right,  and  serve 
to  make  peace  and  justice  the  more  secure  by  affording 
a  definite  tribunal  of  opinion  to  which  all  must  submit, 
and  by  which  every  international  adjustment  that  can 
not  be  amicably  agreed  upon  by  the  peoples  directly 
concerned  shall  be  sanctioned. 

These  great  objects  can  be  put  into  a  single  sentence: 
What  we  seek  is  the  reign  of  law  based  upon  the  con 
sent  of  the  governed  and  sustained  by  the  organized 
opinion  of  mankind. 


INDEX 


Adams,  Anne,  1 

Address  to  Congress  of  April  2, 

1917,  95-96,  102-105 
Address  to  Congress  of  Jan.  8, 

1918,  115 

America's   reunion   with    Great 

Britain,  113 
Ancestry  and  birth,  1 
Arabic,  84,  95 
Armed  neutrality,  102 
Atlanta,  Ga.,  7 
Augusta,  Ga.,  3 
Axon,  Ellen  L.,  8 

Banking  reform,  67 
Belgium,  93,  106 
Bethmann-Hollweg,  92 
Big  business,  56,  60 
Boiling,  Edith,  8 
Bosses,  42,  63 
Boy-Ed,  98 

British  institutions,  11,  13 
Browning,  Oscar,  16 
Bryan,  W.  J.,  106 
Bryn  Mawr,  7 

Cabinet,  5 

Capital,    combinations    of,    55; 

secret  processes,  59 
Carranza,  77 
Churchill,  Winston,  113 
Civil  War,  50 
Clubs,  College,  36 
Color  '  ia,  S.  C.,  4 
Corr      tition,  69 
Congress,     6,     11;     war     and, 

82 
"  Congressional  Government,"  6, 

7,  10,  13,  39 


Conservation,  57 

Constitution,  U.  S.,  overriding, 

69 
Currency  bill,  67 

Democracy,  fundamental,  52 

Democratic  party,  creed,  51; 
New  Jersey,  41 ;  original  prin 
ciple,  50 

Dernburg,  98 

Derry,  J.  T.,  3 

Diaz,  Porfirio,  73 

"  Division  and  Reunion,"  17 

Dumba,  Dr.,  98 

Education,  3;  university  ideal, 
30 

Elective  system  in  universities, 
29 

Essays,  18 

Europe,  American  non-inter 
vention  in,  86 

European  war,  American  initial 
feeling,  83;  conditions  shap 
ing  Wilson's  policy,  82;  set 
tlement,  118;  Wilson's  ad 
dress  of  April  2,  1917,  95-96, 
102-105 

Executive  prerogative,  43 

Federal  Reserve  Banks,  67 
Federal      Trade      Commission, 

68 
First     book,     6,     7,     10,     13, 

39 

Ford,  H.  J.,  67 
Ford  Peace  Conference,  85 
Fourteen  points,  115 


121 


122 


INDEX 


Gait,  Mrs.  Norman,  8 

German-Americans,  84 

Germany,  American  declaration 
of  war  against,  102;  in 
trigues,  98;  professions  and 
conduct,  92,  97-98 

Governorship,  40 

"  Group  electives,"  31 

Harris,  Wilson,  65,  68,  73 
Health,  4,  7 
Historical  writings,  16 
"  History  of  the  American  Peo 
ple,"  16 
Huerta,  75 
Hughes,  C.  E.,  99 
"  Human  man,"  24,  25 
Humanity,  58,  70 

Income  tax,  federal,  66 
Interlocking    directorships,    60, 

68 
Intervention  in  Mexico,  77,  80 

Johns  Hopkins  University,  7, 
10 

Kruger,  Paul,  75 

League  of  Nations,  109 
League  to  Enforce   Peace,  90, 

91 

Lecture  system  in  college,  32 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  vii,  3,  22,  23, 

26 

Literary  work,  9 
Literature,  18 
Lloyd  George,  David,  115 
Lusitawa,    83,   84,    90,    94,    95, 


Madero,  Francisco,  75 
Martine,  J.  E.,  42 
Mental  bent,  6 

"Mere  Literature,"  18,  20,  21, 
33 


Message  to  Congress,  66 
Mexico,  72,  73 
Monopolies,  51,  54,  62,  68 
Monroe  Doctrine,  87 
Mount  Vernon  address,  119 
Munitions,  106 

Neutrality,  88,  89,  91 

"  New  Freedom,  The,"  52 

New  Jersey,   governorship,   40; 

reforms,  42,  46;  senatorship, 

42 

Niagara  conference,  76 
Note  of  Dec.  20,  1916,  91-92 

Pacifism,  85 
Pan-Americanism,  77 
Patience,  x,  96,  100,  102 
Peace  Conference,  111 
People,  government  of,  49,  52, 

53 

Political  writings,  6,  7,  10 
Politics  in  New  Jersey,  40 
Preceptorial  system,  33 
Preparedness,  98 
Presidential  election  of  1912,  49, 

65 
Presidential  election  of  1916,  97, 

99 

Primaries,  direct,  45 
Princeton    University,   4,   8,   9; 

club    system,    36;     Graduate 

School,     37;     presidency     of 

Wilson,  28 
Protectionism,  49,  51 
Public     Utilities     Commission, 

45 

Radicalism,  69,  71 
Republican  party,  50 
Roosevelt,  Theodore,  52,  66,  88, 

93;     control    of    monopolies, 

62 

Scholarship,  33,  35 
Smith,  James,  42 
Socialism,  69,  71 


INDEX 


123 


South  American  states,  76 
Speech  of  May  27,  1916,  90 
"Slate,  The,"  14 
Staunton,  Va.,  1 
Steel,  61 

Steubenville,  O.,  1 
Stone,  W.  J.,  107 
Stupidity,  64 
Submarines.    See  U-boats 


Taft,  W.  H.,  51 
Tariff,  51,  58,  66 
"Too  proud  to  fight,"  90 
Trusts,  69 


U-boats,  84,  96 

U.  S.  Steel  Corporation,  61 

Universities  in  America,  29 

Villa,  77 
Von  Papen,  98 

War  aims,  115 

Washington,    George,    vii,    86; 

"Life  of  Washington,"  17 
Wilson,  James,  1 
Wilson,  Joseph  R.,  1 
Woodrow,  Janet,  2 
Woodrow,  Thomas,  2 


ADDRESSES  OF  PRESIDENT  WILSON 
Edited  by  GEORGE  McLEAN   HARPER 

Professor  in  Princeton  University 
(English  Readings  for  Schools)    xvii+3ii  pages.     i6mo.    52  cents 

In  this  volume  Professor  Harper  has  brought  to 
gether  twenty-seven  of  President  Wilson's  addresses 
and  state  papers  from  the  period  extending  from  the 
First  Inaugural,  March  4,  1913,  to  August,  1916,  and 
practically  every  address  made  from  this  date  up  to 
and  including  the  Baltimore  address,  April  6,  1918,  en 
titled,  "  Force  to  the  Utmost." 

The  documents  are  easily  among  the  most  impor 
tant  during  this  critical  period  of  the  world's  history. 
They  bring  to  a  sharp,  clear  focus  the  essentials  of  true 
Americanism  and  the  relations  of  America  to  the  other 
countries  of  the  world.  They  are  fundamental  to  a 
clear  and  adequate  conception  of  the  role  America 
must  play  during  and  after  the  war. 

The  introduction  considers  "  Mr.  Wilson's  entire 
career  as  a  scholar  and  a  man  of  letters,  paying  par 
ticular  attention  to  the  growth  of  his  political  ideal." 

CHAUNCEY  W.  WELLS,  University  of  California: 

"  It  is  indeed  a  pleasure  and  a  privilege  to  have  in  one 
compact  volume  the  epoch-marking  speeches  and  state  papers 
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wonders  whether  there  has  ever  been  in  one  small  volume  so 
great  a  contribution  to  liberal  thinking  in  politics  as  this 
book  contains ;  certainly  not  for  a  century  has  the  world  seen 
anything  like  it.  I  shall  bring  the  book  to  the  attention  of 
my  classes — possibly  I  shall  use  it  as  a  textbook.  Without 
doubt  I  shall  recommend  it  to  all  English  and  history  teachers 
in  California  high  schools." 


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— Boston  Transcript. 

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